Samuel L. Jackson in "The Red Violin."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Samuel L. Jackson and Greta Scacchi Director: Francois Girard Rated: Not rated, containing some nudity, sexual situations and violence. In English and French, German, Italian and Chinese with English subtitles. Length: 126 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Marshall Fine
Gannett News Service

(June 25, 1999) -- The Red Violin may be the summer's classiest find, a film of passion and complexity that looks like a collection of short stories but has the cumulative effect of a novel.

Bouncing back and forth between the 17th century and the present (with stops in between) while circling the globe, The Red Violin tells several stories at once, each illuminating the other. Writer-director Francois Girard (who co-wrote with Don McKellar) skillfully cruises the spectrum of emotions, maintaining a sense of mystery even as he gradually unveils the secrets of his film.

The story focuses on a singular musical instrument: an acoustically perfect violin made by an Italian master named Bussotti in 1681. The film's opening presents its dual framing stories: the events surrounding the making of the violin (meant to be a gift for Bussotti's unborn son) and a modern-day Montreal auction house, where the legendary instrument will fetch millions.

Girard touches on a variety of musical eras as he tells several stories, which track the provenance of the violin. Bussotti's masterpiece, the instrument seems to find its ideal owner every 80 or 100 years, someone whose spirit ultimately becomes possessed by the perfection of the music the violin can produce.

It begins with a small boy, an orphan who lives in a German orphanage famed for its children's orchestras. The violin finds its way there after a tragedy strikes Bussotti and into the hands of a young prodigy, who comes to the attention of a music master in Vienna. Convinced he has discovered a new Mozart, the master adopts the boy, hoping to use him to make his fortune.

It next surfaces almost a century later, in the possession of a flamboyant English concert violinist (Jason Flemyng). Before he understands what has happened to him, his pleasure in his wife (Greta Scacchi) has become intertwined with his obsession in his violin, until he's playing the violin while they have sex and composing pretty fair music in the process.

From there, it travels to the People's Republic of China. Given to a young girl as a gift, it winds up as her liability several decades later when she has become a cadre in the Cultural Revolution. Western instruments and music are denounced and destroyed but she cannot bear to consign her childhood treasure to Mao's bonfires.

The violin finally becomes the preoccupation of a modern musical-instrument expert from New York named Morritz (Samuel L. Jackson), who is evaluating a shipment of instruments (including the Bussotti) prior to auction in Montreal. Recognizing it as the long-missing violin and learning the true story of its origin he plots how to make it his own, even as he is supposedly appraising it.

Girard, who made the intriguingly fractured 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, splinters time again in ways that never hint how much the director is keeping hidden. He moves easily between the past and present, telling each chapter of the violin's story while reflecting through the twin prisms of Bussotti's wife, Anna, and Morritz.

The auction is the framing device from the present; Girard also uses a slowly unspooled scene involving Anna having her tarot cards read prior to the birth of her baby. The bookends echo and resonate in unexpected way, enhanced by the evocative score by John Corigliano and the haunting playing of violin soloist Joshua Bell. Corigliano's music captures the essence of each era while serving as the emotional underpinning for the story.

An international cast beautifully presents its individual pieces of the puzzle. Among the most outstanding are Jean-Luc Bideau, as the Vienna music master who grows surprisingly attached to his young pupil; Flemyng and Scacchi as the libidinously creative Victorian couple; Sylvia Chang as the Chinese violinist who won't allow politics to obscure her love of beauty; and, particularly, Jackson as the modern expert with the skills of a technician and the soul of a romantic.

Omnibus films of this nature rise and fall on the strength of their individual stories. The Red Violin creates a whole that is even greater than its beautiful parts.