"Le Concert" film title in French suggests French production involved (with Mélanie Laurent, Miou-Miou and François Berléand - definitely French et Paris). Core story sets in Russia, began with strains of "Elvira Madigan" - promise of familiar classical pieces we enjoy. Abrupt distraction introduced our 'hero' of the story (Andrei Filipov well-portrayed by Alexei Guskov) and hint of comedic intimations began. The rounding up of his former orchestral members (80 of them, no small matter) gave us vignettes of varying walks of Moscow life. The urgency timing of performance date in 2 weeks, the logistics of flying everyone to foreign soil of Paris - language interpretations, events-process travel visa coordination, plus a solid impersonator as the group's Bolshoi Orchestra spokesman for the journey. 'tis a lot to cohesively deliver by director Radu Mihaileanu, and he pulled it off. We get to appreciate a genuinely heart-warming movie and fantastic music played to our ears.
Plot actually thickens as we're clued into the Parisian-side of things, with the repeated 'no's' of Guylène, underplayed by Miou-Miou as the young lady violinist's guardian and agent, and the retorting 'yes's' of Anne-Marie Jacquet convincingly portrayed by Mélanie Laurent - including her virtual playing-performing on the violin (what a young successful thespian at that, whose remarkable in her role in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" 2009), plus the comic tempo of François Berléand as Olivier Morne Duplessis, the Parisian contact for the event. Yes, 'dramedy' leads us to unspoken secrets of the past, of artistic struggles and hard times during political differences, and, is Anne-Marie truly an orphan genius with no past?
The story reminds me of similar turn of events for artists in China during Cultural Revolution period, when they, too, had to experience hard labor camps and fatal physical coldness conditions. Chen Gang, co-creator of the "Butterfly Lovers' violin concerto" 1959 at age 24, his famous composer father Chen Gexin of many popular Mandarin songs in '30-'40s (like "Rose, Rose, I Love You") died in 1957 at age 47 and survived by his loving wife who tenaciously brought up their four children, who became successful musicians themselves. In "The Concert" we get a glimpse at such circumstances and how people affected might cope and carry on with their lives.
"The Concert" is a heart-warming movie, with its delights, humorous situations, poignant disclosures to the unfolding story, and as one would expect (so the film poster and trailer both suggest) the climatic central concert piece where we see Laurent impressively plays the violin concerto (of Tchaikovsky's). A satisfying experience all in all, encouraging want of enduring friendships not easy to come by and that we'd dearly cherish and revere.
Plot actually thickens as we're clued into the Parisian-side of things, with the repeated 'no's' of Guylène, underplayed by Miou-Miou as the young lady violinist's guardian and agent, and the retorting 'yes's' of Anne-Marie Jacquet convincingly portrayed by Mélanie Laurent - including her virtual playing-performing on the violin (what a young successful thespian at that, whose remarkable in her role in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" 2009), plus the comic tempo of François Berléand as Olivier Morne Duplessis, the Parisian contact for the event. Yes, 'dramedy' leads us to unspoken secrets of the past, of artistic struggles and hard times during political differences, and, is Anne-Marie truly an orphan genius with no past?
The story reminds me of similar turn of events for artists in China during Cultural Revolution period, when they, too, had to experience hard labor camps and fatal physical coldness conditions. Chen Gang, co-creator of the "Butterfly Lovers' violin concerto" 1959 at age 24, his famous composer father Chen Gexin of many popular Mandarin songs in '30-'40s (like "Rose, Rose, I Love You") died in 1957 at age 47 and survived by his loving wife who tenaciously brought up their four children, who became successful musicians themselves. In "The Concert" we get a glimpse at such circumstances and how people affected might cope and carry on with their lives.
"The Concert" is a heart-warming movie, with its delights, humorous situations, poignant disclosures to the unfolding story, and as one would expect (so the film poster and trailer both suggest) the climatic central concert piece where we see Laurent impressively plays the violin concerto (of Tchaikovsky's). A satisfying experience all in all, encouraging want of enduring friendships not easy to come by and that we'd dearly cherish and revere.