As Perfect As It's Subject

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2000)

Everything about this movie works for me, from the beauty of the story itself to the artistry of the inter-woven subplots, beautiful imagery, music and cast selection. 'The Red Violin' is a remarkable epic history of a musical instrument binding both the past to the present as well as the spirits of the participants along the journey.
The movies' mysteries are revealed slowly and poetically in a precisely authored meter spanning the violin's birth, journey, and "rebirth". The violin's precise blending of art and mechanical perfection mocks both Cesca's bones and amulets as well as Morritz's "mass spec" and and organic evaluation's to stand apart as something indefinable which soars above and survives Prince's, Cultural Revolutions, attempts to destroy it and finally - attempts to possess it. Morritz is the only one who understands, with true unselfish love, the tragedy and travesty of allowing the vilolin's nobility to be bartered like a slave on the platform into the clutches of auctioned greed.
I recommend this movie to people of passion and lover's of beauty. Over analyzing critics and nit picker's would would be better served by the movie "pi" or "Eraser Head" for this movie's meaning is as much beyond their scope as The Red Violin's value was beyond Mr. Ruselsky's.