Rating: 
Summary: An emotional rollar coaster.
Review: This movie is a one of a kind. The most beautiful music I have ever heard in my life exists in this movie. It took me through emotions that I didn't know that I had. Definately a must see.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding film
Review: This movie is in foreign language and it was my first foreign film I watched all the way through. I couldn't imagine watching this film any other way. It captured something genuine about that period. A must see film with terrific foreign actors.
Rating:
Summary: An ignored classic
Review: This sensuous and beautiful work is for those who are not easily shocked; who love the beauty of opera and the human voice; and who don't mind a bit of experimentation.The mixing of the two voices (soprano and heldentenor) to approximate the range and power of a castrato singer is beautifully done and beautifully enacted in this film. Get the DVD and watch it with your lover!
Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: This story is not only magnificent in itself, and not only does it recreate the glamourous atmosphere of the time of Baroque, it brought two soulmates together as well- my girlfriend and I. Can not praise it enough.....
Rating: 
Summary: The best bits are overblown melodrama and the rest....
Review: This was in a technical sense an interesting film. As everyone would know this film is about a castratii. A singer who has had his testicles cut off before puberty to preserve a boys voice. The sort of voice which was achieved by these singers is now something of a problem and the parts are sung by women. In an attempt to reproduce the sort of sound that would have occured two singers, a man and woman have tracks morphed by a computer. The sound is fascinating. The movie however is not. The hero Farinelli apart from being one of Europes leading singers became a companion of the king of Spain in later life. He would thus have seemed to be a person of some interlect and charm. The film however is pretty grotesque. It makes his castration the center point of the film and the basis of the entire tension and plot direction. Whilst such an operation would clearly be a bit of a shock, we would probably see it as so. For Farinelli it would not doubt be different. It was a decision which moved him from a person with no future to wealth and a place in a royal court. Of course nowdays we tend to see sexual matters as more important and the film reflects this rather modern attitude with the theme being his sense of loss and betrayal. It is his brother who has drugged and castrated him at a young age and then makes a living off him by managing him. Despite a modern view of things being cast back on a far different time, the film is quite grotesque. Thus Farinelli's brother uses him to get girls "in the mood" and as they lie in bed sexually excited he comes in to finish the job his brother cannot do. Again something which is the creation of the film director to explain the co-dependance of the brothers and the shame and hostility of Farinelli. In general the film is a dissapointment. The portrayal of the characters such as Handel is absurd. The tensions and drama within the film are contrived. The singing is however good. But over all weird, and dissapointing.
Rating:
Summary: Killer flamboyant movie about everyone's fav 18th C castrato
Review: Wow!!! I watch this movie time and again. The acting is first-class and the story enthralling. Farinelli is amazing.........and that is NO exaggeration!
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