Epea Pteroenta

Arthouse movies can be unbearably pretentious. They can also be overwhelmingly awesome.

I saw this movie years ago, as an avant-premiere screening at a little festival in Athens. I had seen Girl, Interrupted there the day before, and the big name was The Beach, which was coming up right after this. So The Red Violin ended up shown at 10am on Sunday, perhaps the most unfavourable slot in the entire weekend. I’ve never been so glad I got up early to be there on time.

The movie traces the story of the eponymous red violin from its tragical creation in 17th-century Cremona to the present, through five interlaced stories (four plots and the auction scene that links all the rest), in five languages (Italian, German, English, Chinese, and French), covering five countries and – borderline – five centuries, all starting with a five-card tarot reading. It’s a masterful weave, and it would have been a blockbuster without its multilingual status.

The red violin is created in 1681 by Niccolo Busciotti, for the son he’s sure his wife Anna is about to give him (Luna). Tragically, mother and child die in labour, and the distraught artisan varnishes the violin with his wife’s blood and abandons his trade. There is a suggestion that something of the unborn child’s spirit has passed into the instrument, which goes on to bring misery to its owners.

Vienna, 1790s (The Hanged Man): The violin belongs to a very talented but sickly young boy who is raised in a church orphanage. A rich noble sponsors him to start a career, but the boy dies of heart failure before his first recital, out of sheer fear of having his violin taken away from him if he’s not good enough. The violin is buried with him, but the grave is robbed later.

England, 1890s presumably (The Devil): A young noble acquires the red violin from a band of gypsies. He’s a talented artist as well as a dilettante, but when his lover travels to Russia, he loses inspiration and takes to opium. On her return, he’s such a mess that she abandons him, he commits suicide, and the violin is carried off by his Chinese opium dealer.

In China, the violin belongs for a time to a young girl who dreams of being a professional, but when Mao’s revolution outlaws Western music, she is forced to entrust it to a music teacher, disgraced for his Western affiliations, for safekeeping (Justice).

Today, the old Chinese music teacher is dead and his secret stash of instruments is being auctioned off, in Montreal. Several people come to claim the red violin, but only an expert brought in to ascertain whether it is really the notorious Red Violin is genuinely touched by its spirit. He ends up allowing a fake to be auctioned off, stealing the original for his daughter, and the movie ends leaving the viewer wondering if the circle of misery will continue or if the original spirit is finally at rest, since the tarot reading is complete and fulfilled (Death, reversed).

The acting is understated, with Samuel L. Jackson as the expert and Greta Scacchi as the dilettante’s lover the only recognisable names, the settings and costumes glorious in their detail, and the music is absolutely sumptuous. I came out of the screening wanting it so badly that, if it hadn’t been a Sunday, I’d have gone straight into the Virgin Megastore next door and looked for the soundtrack. Required viewing for anyone interested in music, at the very least.