The curious power of violins

Rating: 10/10 (21 June 2000)

It's amazing how easy it is to care for musical instruments. It's not giving much away to say that the red violin is imperilled more than once; and I was sitting in my seat, mentally screaming to the director: "Kill off some of the characters if you want, maim and injure them, but for God's sake, don't hurt the violin!" I don't think I could stand to watch even an ordinary violin damaged. As for a surpassingly beautiful and sonorous violin, centuries old and perhaps with centuries yet to live ... well, it's no stretch at all to say that such an instrument would be more important than most of us, certainly more important than I. So why shouldn't it be a central character? Fictional characters simply have to (a) have things happen to them, and (b) make us care what happens to them. They needn't do anything else.
This is an amazing film. The violin "comes to life", so to speak, in five different eras (and countries), and every one of them is perfectly realised - it's a joy just to watch the temporal scenery. (Perhaps the third of the five eras, early Edwardian England, is a little harder to swallow than the rest, with its aristocratic violinist who extemporises great music while having sex. Really! As if the resulting compositions would have the slightest value.) It's interesting that the evocation of time and place is NOT accomplished by musical means. Almost all the music we hear was composed by John Corigliano, and he makes his music as hard to pin down to any one age as he can. This was an excellent idea. It gives the violin a character, and makes it seem more powerful than any of the forces temporarily besetting it. It also suits the story in a way I'm not at liberty to reveal.
Although it's easy to be absorbed in "The Red Violin", be warned that the human interest in each of the five eras is subservient to the violin interest. If you are one of those people who can't easily care about a musical instrument much of the film will be lost on you.