The Concert

 This movie is vastly enjoyable, with a catch. The audience must attune themselves to accept the magic of the motion picture, suspend belief and willingly submit to manipulation. For this particular movie, they must also abandon from the very start any glimpse of hope that the movie makers have their heart in classical music, despite the allure of having Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto (Concerto in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, OP. 35, to be exact) billed as the central showpiece. In the real world, an orchestra does not plunge into a performance cold, without a rehearsal. In the real world, in a world class concert, soloists do not perform a piece of music that they have never played before. In a real world, a performance of excellence does not start in complete disarray and then magically snap into perfection. But all that do not matter. All these can happen in a movie, and that is the magic of the motion picture that one must accept.
Now to the good news. As a movie, "The concert" has all the right ingredients: it starts as a hilarious farce, eases into a poignant melodrama and climaxes in a soaring, uplifting finale. The story really started 30 years ago (revealed in an unhurried manner via flashbacks throughout the movie) when brilliant young conductor Andrei Filipov's (Alexei Gustov) "dream concert" was abruptly interrupted and terminated. Conducting the Bolshoi Orchestra he was experiencing the ultimate sublime harmony in music achieved between conductor, artist and audience, in the performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with an enormously talented Jewish violinist Lea. But the concert was never allowed to finish, as Lea and other Jewish members of the orchestra were taken away right in the middle of the performance to concentration camps while Filipov who stood up for them lost his job.
30 years later, as the story unfolds in the present, Filipov, now a janitor with the same Bolshoi Orchestra, intercepts a fax inviting the orchestra to substitute on short notice in a performance in Paris after a cancellation. He comes up with the outrageous but brilliant idea of putting together an impersonating orchestra with his ex-colleagues and go to Paris. One does not need a great deal of imagination to see how much fun can be have from developing such a plot, particularly with the rich collection of oddities of characters in the orchestra, stereotyping notwithstanding. True, this is not exactly the subtlest of humour, but still a tremendous amount of fun.
The other plot line is in Filipov's pursuit of his unfinished dream from 30 years ago. They will play Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto and he also wants a celebrated, much demanded, young violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet (Melanie Laurent) as his soloist. This plot line feeds the unabashedly manipulative and yet highly successful tear-jerking half of the movie that well balances and complements the comic side.
Gustov is convincing as the sensitive protagonist with a dream. Among the large cast of excellent support character, the best are Dmitry Nazarov as the massive, huggable sidekick cellist and Anna Kamenkova as the resourceful, enterprising wife reminds me immediately of Dolly Levi in "Hello, Dolly". But if none of these succeeds in pleasing, the movie, as one critic aptly puts it, "bets all its chips on the performance" of Melaine Laurent. Those who have seen her in "Inglourious Basterds" will need no reminder of her as "France's most glamorous Jewish actress" as one other critic puts is (the most glamorous actress in any nationality and ethic background, one might say). Go to this movie to see her, if for nothing else.
While the initial buffoonery does not do justice to the real world of classical music concert, the aforementioned soaring finale does give the audience a long-awaited of the sunny side of Tchaikovsky, in a portion of the first and third movements of the Violin Concerto.
One music critic describes it opening movement thus:
"…..begins in the strings and the woodwinds. It builds to a crescendo of excitement before the solo violin enters with an improvisatory sequence followed immediately by a statement of the first theme (Moderato assai). This is worked up elaborately and then the second theme appears, also in the solo instrument."
In the movie, this is employed also for dramatic effects. The initial bars draw slightly discernible frowns and head-shakings from the audience. Then, when radiant Anne-Marie Jacquet comes in confidently with her solo theme, everything falls into place magically.
What the same critic has to say for the finale of the concerto:
"The two principal melodies of this Finale have a folk –like character – the second one, a broad theme first stated by the solo violin, exhibits definite Russian gypsy characteristics. Tension and excitement build and the end is a brilliant climax".
By this time, the audience has been palpated to an emotional climax and the fitting conclusion, while may not necessarily bring them to their feet as the audience in the concert hall in the movie, will guarantee that they leave the cinema in an uplifted and happy mood, and forever in love with Melanie Laurent.