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Film Critique: The Red Violin Essay

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The movie The Red Violin is a drama written and directed by filmmaker Francois Girard, which follows the history of a mysterious and intriguing musical instrument over the span of 300 years. Francois Girard got the idea for the movie from events involving the legendary red Mendelssohn, a 1720 Antonio Stradivari violin which was purchased in 1990 by the grandfather of celebrated musician and heiress, Elizabeth Pitcairn (Fricke, 2010). The story is artfully and elegantly put together, and although the story is fictional the plot portrays what could be realistic characters, settings and life situations. There are some flaws in the movie however, but the entertaining qualities more than makes up for them. There are several…show more content…
Girard introduces a scene with the violin’s creator’s wife Anna Rudolfi, having her future read with the use of tarot cards. She is asked to pick five cards and as each one is turned up and read during the movie it adds to the suspense of what will happen in each story. The creative way of how each story connects the violin to the next story with the end resulting in a twist to the tale, captivates its audience. Each place portrayed in the movie, Cremona Italy, Vienna Austria, Oxford England, Shanghai China, and Montreal Canada was also convincingly well done. Girard uses the appropriate language for each country, uses the appropriate scenery and architecture portraying the era of time and the country of origin. The clothing worn in each narrative also adds to the believability of the movie. Many scenes contain reddish, brown hues as if to symbolize the blood Bussotti used from his dead wife to varnish the violin. The psychic reading Rudolfi received before her death told her she was going to live a very long life and travel far, leaving one to surmise her ‘soul’ from her blood on the violin was what the psychic really saw in the card readings similar to that of the Jehovah Witness population believing the soul is found in the blood. The moon in the movie also has some symbolic meaning. In the beginning of the movie, one of the scenes shows Rudolfi and Bussotti standing at the window
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