The Concert [Le Concert] (***½)
Directed by: Radu
Mihăileanu
Starring: Mélanie Laurent, Aleksei Guskov, Dimitry Nazarov, Valeri
Barinov, François Berléand, Miou-Miou
Seen: January 22nd 2011
***½
Out of ****
This is the kind of movie I wish South African art-house cinemas would
go to more trouble to source. Released in South Africa more than a year after
it release in France, I’m just glad the movie made it here. This Russian-French
story tells the of a Bolshoi orchestra of old, circa 1980. Andreï
Filipov (Guskov) was the Bolshoi’s most brilliant conductor ever, publically
humiliated by Ivan Gavrilov (Barinov) under command from Brezhnev (General
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union),
for employing Jews in his orchestra. Gavrilov walked on-stage in the middle of
a Tchaikovsky concert and broke Filipov’s conducting baton just before giving
the order for the curtains to be lowered.
30 years later, Filipov is the Bolshoi Theatre janitor, and his orchestra
are almost completely disbanded. While cleaning the office of the Bolshoi’s director,
Filipov intercepts a fax from Olivier Morne Duplessis (Berléand), invitating
the Bolshoi to play at his theatre, the Châtelet in Paris, for one night only,
in two weeks’ time. Filipov sees this as his chance and goes on a
re-recruitment drive for his orchestra. First hired is his friend Sasha
Grossman (Nazarov), now an ambulance driver, but also a cellist. The two drive
Sasha’s ambulance all across Moscow in recruiting the members, including their
supposed manager, Ivan Gavrilov.
The movie is highly enjoyable, with the orchestra slowly growing as
their deadline draws near; the members not always seeming to be as “culturally civilised”
as you’d expect national orchestra members to be. They even disappear when they
reach Paris, almost derailing Filipov’s plans at not only (and finally) finishing
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35; but also his further plans at
getting promising young French violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet (Laurent) to play
the Solo violin for the concert, a young woman who he has an unexpected
connection with.
In preparation for her role as Anne-Marie Jacquet, Mélanie Laurent
studied the violin for two months under Sarah Netahu of the French National
Orchestra, and it seems that she’s been playing it forever when she’s playing
on-screen (I don’t doubt that you’d need more studying to be able to play what’s
played in the movie though). Aleksei Guskov and Dimitry Nazarov play off each
other brilliantly, and Guskov in particular shines as the down-trodden Maestro
getting back up again. Valeri Barinov brings the perfect amount of silliness to
his role as Communist party member and orchestra manager while also keeping the
audience guessing as to his true motives.
The movie’s crescendo is the Violin Concerto itself, and even thinking
of it now, two days later, lifts my spirits. This is the most glorious musical
sequence I’ve ever experienced in the movies, and it will stay with me for
quite a while. The wobbly start as the orchestra find their rhythm bursts into
the most incredible and apparently one of the most technically difficult violin
pieces ever written. The Concert is a triumph, and I can definitely recommend
it to everyone.
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