Le concert (2009)
(The Concert)
Country: FR/IT/ROM/BEL/RUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Cast: Aleksei Guskov, Dmitri Nazarov, Mélanie Laurent, Miou-Miou, François Berléand
Synopsis:
A Russian conductor demoted to janitor under the Brezhnev regime intercepts an email to the Bolshoi from an impresario in Paris wanting to book them. He conceives the crazy scheme of answering the call and taking a motley band of equally disgraced musicians, mostly Jews and Gypsies, to perform a long cherished piece at the Châtelet theatre.
Review:
Stacking the odds impossibly against a remotely musical performance of the great work, only to have the miracle of artistic expression achieved in sympathy by a group of musicians who have never even rehearsed together, this is less The Band's Visit than Twist Again à Moscou. Very broad and very Russian, it stacks up the gags early on, most of them so racist only an unreconstructed Eastern bloc nation could get away with it, and then shovels on the sentiment for good measure. Amazingly it achieves some measure of audience backing thanks to the vigour of the leads, who are all sympathetic in their roles in differing ways; errors of judgement there are, but by the time of the extended musical finale, like the spectators at the Châtelet we are won over by sheer force of arms (aka Tchaikovsky's violin concerto).
(The Concert)
Country: FR/IT/ROM/BEL/RUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Cast: Aleksei Guskov, Dmitri Nazarov, Mélanie Laurent, Miou-Miou, François Berléand
Synopsis:
A Russian conductor demoted to janitor under the Brezhnev regime intercepts an email to the Bolshoi from an impresario in Paris wanting to book them. He conceives the crazy scheme of answering the call and taking a motley band of equally disgraced musicians, mostly Jews and Gypsies, to perform a long cherished piece at the Châtelet theatre.
Review:
Stacking the odds impossibly against a remotely musical performance of the great work, only to have the miracle of artistic expression achieved in sympathy by a group of musicians who have never even rehearsed together, this is less The Band's Visit than Twist Again à Moscou. Very broad and very Russian, it stacks up the gags early on, most of them so racist only an unreconstructed Eastern bloc nation could get away with it, and then shovels on the sentiment for good measure. Amazingly it achieves some measure of audience backing thanks to the vigour of the leads, who are all sympathetic in their roles in differing ways; errors of judgement there are, but by the time of the extended musical finale, like the spectators at the Châtelet we are won over by sheer force of arms (aka Tchaikovsky's violin concerto).
(The Concert)
Country: FR/IT/ROM/BEL/RUS
Technical: col 119m
Director: Radu Mihaileanu
Cast: Aleksei Guskov, Dmitri Nazarov, Mélanie Laurent, Miou-Miou, François Berléand
Synopsis:
A Russian conductor demoted to janitor under the Brezhnev regime intercepts an email to the Bolshoi from an impresario in Paris wanting to book them. He conceives the crazy scheme of answering the call and taking a motley band of equally disgraced musicians, mostly Jews and Gypsies, to perform a long cherished piece at the Châtelet theatre.
Review:
Stacking the odds impossibly against a remotely musical performance of the great work, only to have the miracle of artistic expression achieved in sympathy by a group of musicians who have never even rehearsed together, this is less The Band's Visit than Twist Again à Moscou. Very broad and very Russian, it stacks up the gags early on, most of them so racist only an unreconstructed Eastern bloc nation could get away with it, and then shovels on the sentiment for good measure. Amazingly it achieves some measure of audience backing thanks to the vigour of the leads, who are all sympathetic in their roles in differing ways; errors of judgement there are, but by the time of the extended musical finale, like the spectators at the Châtelet we are won over by sheer force of arms (aka Tchaikovsky's violin concerto).