Rating: 
Summary: This Movie Has Everything
Review: This movie has everything... beautiful photography, beautiful music, a good story... the story has everything, too... gypsies, politics, a police mystery story... it spans the centuries, and roams from Italy to England and China to Canada, following the violin. The movie made me laugh, and it made me cry. I loved it. It is in the top 3% of films I have loved. That is why I am buying it, for my private collection of films I want to have with me, so I can show them to my friends. Whoever wrote the review for Amazon.com doesn't know a good movie when he sees one. To me, this movie is great.
Rating:
Summary: IT'S SOO KOOL!
Review: WELL IT STARTS OUT A LITTLE CONFUSING BUT THEN IT'S GETS REALLY NEAT IN THE MIDDLE THEN END.IT WAS REALLY NEAT HOW THE STORY WERE TOLD.IT WAS SOO KOOL.
Rating: 
Summary: Missed Opportunities and Misplaced Focus
Review: The Red Violin begins in the present at an auction of antique musical instruments taking place in Montreal. One of the valuable and coveted pieces up for sale is the famous Red Violin, fashioned by the hands of master craftsman Nicolo Bussotti in 1681. In attendance at the auction is Charles Morritz, a renowned musical historian who has been retained by the auctioneer to attest the origin of the pieces auctioned.Using a series of flashbacks, the film then proceeds to trace the journey of the Red Violin, beginning in Cremona, Italy. As Bussotti is fashioning the violin as a gift for his as yet unborn son, his still pregnant wife, Anna is consulting with her spiritulist. Her future, she is told, is inextricably entwined with that of the violin. Setting a precedent that will become commonplace during the life of the violin, tragedy strikes the Bussotti household. Almost a century later, the violin surfaces in a Vienna orphanage run by Austrian monks. One child, Kaspar Weiss (Christoph Konez, a real-life violin virtuoso), displays exceptionable abilities with the instrument and is promptly whisked away by a French music teacher to receive the most rigorous formal training. Unfortunately, tragedy once again strikes. The violin eventually wends its way to Shanghai, where it languishes for many years in a dusty pawn shop until its purchase by an upper class Chinese family for their daughter, Xiang Pei. But Xiang Pei is a politically motivated girl, caught up in the Cultural Revolution of the Sixties. Unwilling to let her fervent Maoist contemporaries burn her beloved violin, she leaves it in the care of her music teacher where it remains hidden until his death. Finally, the violin surfaces in Montreal and comes to the attention of Morritz, who prepares to authenticate the instrument. However, as he comes closer and closer to discovering the truth about this enigmatic instrument, he too, begins to fall under its spell. Although interesting, The Red Violin simply lacks the narrative or thematic drive to make it an exceptional film. The film lacks emotional hooks and never really builds to any discernible climax. The narrative focuses on the auction and the motivations of the many persons who hope to acquire the red violin. This only serves to scatter the impact. Had the focus remained on Morritz and his investigation, juxtaposed against the fate of the violin's previous owners, the film might then have been able to project the emotional impact and dramatic vigor so sorely lacking. As it is, the only emotion to be gleaned from The Red Violin is provided by its impressive soundtrack. Dominated by beautiful and passionate violin renditions, the score serves as a lush and gorgeous backdrop to each of the various episodes, matching each musical style to its setting. A film with an epic quality, superbly crafted with stunning visuals, The Red Violin is nevertheless a study in missed opportunities and misplaced focus.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting and Beautiful
Review: I don't have an Ebert-esque dissertation , I just love the film. It's one of the best, if not the best film I've seen in the last five years. It is the story of a violin-maker's masterpiece and the fates that befall all who come in contact with it. If this had been a lesser film, it would have fallen into B-horror movie territory about a possessed violin. It is so much more than that. The characters do seem possessed, and go to great lengths to obtain the violin, and keep it once they do, that the violin almost becomes the main character in the story. It's true that the violin's origins and it's strange coat of paint are no surprise or mystery (I guessed right away), but it doesn't matter. The violin affects the characters in much the same way, but different enough where you wait anxiuosly to find out what will happen to the next person. Take a break from the fast-food junk-food coming out of Hollywood and check out a film that doesn't insult your intelligence or your attention span.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: A friend of mine went out of her mind for this movie, and I can see why: the sweeping scope, both in space and in time, of the narrative, is catnip for those who love history and far-off places. I found some of the episodes to be trite, particularly the one set in Oxford; but the Shanghai and Montreal episodes made up for what the other vignettes lacked, with Sylvia Chang and Samuel L. Jackson both offering excellent performances. The Montreal denouement, where the secret of the violin is revealed and its fate revealed, had me mouth agape. You can't not slap your forehead and feel your mind blow. Special mention to composer John Corigliano and violinist Joshua Bell for making sure the most important part of a film about a musical instrument received all the expertise it deserved. And catch Bell hamming it up in a cameo!
Rating: 
Summary: rich, beautiful film
Review: "The Red Violin" is a fine, beautifully crafted film that follows the life of a rare Italian violin as it bears witness to the lives of various unrelated people who come in contact with it throughout the centuries. Through these characters, we explore the universal human propensities for fear, passion, jealousy, love, greed, oppression and survival in even the most dire of circumstances. Like many anthology films, "The Red Violin" loses some of its emotional force through the fact that the characters, by their very nature, cannot be fully developed and therefore tend a bit toward "type". However, each segment is so lovingly created in terms of setting, costume and cinematography, that the viewer is drawn into the many worlds the film creates. The most impressive part of the film is the brilliant overlapping time structure that is remarkably complex and creates a tremendous amount of excitement and tension in the last half hour of the film when all the elements from the various narrative skeins are pulled together to reveal the whole picture. In fact, the last half hour, in which the violin is restored and the man in charge (played by Samuel L. Jackson) must confront a moral dilemma, lifts the film to a plane far higher than one expects it to go. The surprise ending is also very brave for trusting the audience to accept a morally ambiguous resolution. All in all, this is a mighty impressive achievement.
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Summary: Wondrous tale of a "perfect violin."
Review: The Red Violin is a movie, which like the title violin, that is made in the classic mold. It tells the tales of diverse characters, tied together in life (and often death) by a magnificent violin made by a 17th century Italian artisan. The violin in question, painted red, was to be a gift to the violin maker's unborn son. However, as fate would have it, the child is stillborn. The movie is beautifully bookended by its creation at the hands of the Italian master, and the chapters are marked by a gypsy fortune teller. The pace is perfect: the movie can show the audience the quick passage of time with incredible grace (a orchestra of orphan violinists and a series of gypy violin players are two incredibly effective sequences), as well as slow down and focus on major characters when necessary. Time is also a tool to tell the tale that occurs in the present, and the audience sees the same scene from different angles and points-of-view, opening layers and layers as the plot thickens. I won't reveal the plots. There is a main plot that takes place in the present, a mystery in the past, and three lives in the middle, which makes for a lot of story telling, but is beautifully carried out by the filmaker. If only more movies were like this one, a movie that is not afraid to throw surprises a the audience, a movie that does not spell out every angle and plot development, a movie that does not telegraph every action. The audience is invited to watch, to learn, and to try to follow the history of this rich instrument. The movie only fails to attain five stars because of my personal dislike of the ending. The ending is not false to the movie and the characters, and as such, is understandable, but for me it was not worthy of the moral history of the violin. Nevertheless, this is a truly marvelous film that everyone who loves to watch movies, listen to beautiful music, and to see wondrous sights should definitely watch.
Rating:
Summary: The Red Violin
Review: I was very hesitant to see this film because I'm a violinist and I hate watching a film about violinists where the actors are not playing. The only person not playing in this masterpiece was the young Gypsy girl. People say this film is boring but in actuality it is not. It's beautiful and full of beauty, lust, revenge, death and music. The whole story line is amazing and Joshua Bell's wonderful playing is a fine treat to listen to. I enjoyed this film very much, finding it wonderful and entertaining. Plus it made me want to practice more... :-)
Rating:
Summary: Whoever wrote the editorial review...
Review: I assume if you're reading this that you've already also read Amazon's editorial review. While I will grant that "The Red Violin" had its slow point, in the inability for the violin to sell, I found it altogether very captivating. The cinematography was fantastic, along with the incredibly well thought out plot as to the history of the violin. Watching an object through history allows us to see many different characters develop thoughout the movie, and keeps us interested in how the violin will make it to the auction. This technique allows for both a contemporary movie and a period piece to blend together as one. All in all, while it's not a surprise as far as the finish goes, it's not supposed to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring but colorful remake of LA RONDE
Review: The basic plot of LA RONDE (used previously for such films as THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE) is rehashed here in the form of a famous violin and its many owners since its creation. It's a cursed thing so brings only tragedy to those who covet it (somewhat like Wagner's RING). This vastly overlong film is lethargically directed with no point of view or connecting thread between the stories and when we get the great revelation at the end we realize we guessed it in the first reel. The faux "classical" music score by serious composer John Corigliano was Oscared. The Art Direction, Costume Design and Cinematography are all of merit and worth mention but the thing never gets off the ground or soars - you'd think it would considering the music the instrument makes. If you're an afficianodo of the violin, this will please you. If not, avoid it.
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