Review of The Red Violin

This film goes wrong in so many ways. Main problems: 1) Lack of a small group of characters which the audience gets to know and care about. Instead we are given tiny snap-shots of a host of characters who appear, wander about the film for five or ten minutes, then disappear. 2) The one character who we see (in small bits and pieces) throughout the film is the art expert. He turns out to be a crook. We know nothing about his life. We know nothing about his past. He is just a temperamental jerk who lies to his employers and then steals from them. My emotional investment in his character was just about zero. Why should the audience care about him? What did he do that was in any way admirable or even interesting? 3) The director lavishes vast amounts of attention on the painting of the violin and at the end the pay-off for the audience is... revolting. I'm sorry but I did not feel at all uplifted or enlightened to find out why the Red Violin is red.

A film just about the violin maker might have been interesting. A film just about the life of the orphan virtuoso might have been interesting. A film about the conflict between the love of classical music and adherence to the idiotic Chinese Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution might be interesting. But a film about all of these AND MORE is not a film that is interesting. It is a mess. In trying to tell lots of stories, it ends up telling none of them.

Bottom line: I'm sorry I saw this film. I'm sorry I wasted 2 hours of my life watching this movie. This film gets my lowest possible rating.