Le concerto de tchaikovsky biography movie
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After a crisp opening montage setting up Filipov’s fall from grace, we launch into a Blues Brothers-style plot of the conductor reuniting the band, chiefly its bear-like cellist Grossman (Dmitri Nazarov) and manager Ivan (Valeriy Barinov), an ex-Communist with his own agenda.
So far, so funny and smart. Doesn�t he know his reputation?
For the purposes of this broad comedy, though, he�s still schlepping at the Bolshoi when, in the office of the current director, a fax arrives from the Ch�telet Theater in Paris requesting a one-night performance.
But Gavrilov, the former KGB man, reveals his worth by sacrificing his communist-party commitment to lock the true Bolshoi director, the Khruschevian blowhard, who shows up at the 11th hour, in an underground room; then he, this Godless communist, prays to God that the musicians will come together and make beautiful music.
Which they do.
Now a lowly janitor, an opportunity arises to gather his old musicians to go and pose as th... Why not move to Paris or New York or, hell, Milwaukee? Intercepting a fax inviting the Bolshoi to perform at the Châtelet Theatre, he resolve
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Le Concert
For two thirds of its running time, Le Concert (The Concert for those non-French speakers) is the kind of feel-good foreign language flick that Hollywood falls over itself to remake.
At the other end of the scale, Mihaileanu indulges in some slapstick involving crazy schemes of various orchestra members that lack the first half’s easygoing charms.
Still, things get back on track in the last third, with a virtuoso concert set-piece that intercuts the plot with Anne-Marie’s Tchaikovsky violin concerto performance, which in itself gives the end a huge emotional wallop.
It would also explain why Filipov keeps all of Anne-Marie�s recordings and press clippings and why he gets all moony-eyed around her. As is Filipov, who goes on to fame and fortune.
Why the subterfuge?
�Le concert� is not a good movie. Read allThirty years ago Bolshoi Orchestra conductor Andreï Filipov was fired for hiring Jewish musicians.
Everyone knows I�ll play with you.�
Intercut with this broad drama are scenes of broad comedy: clashes between noisy, grasping Russians and cultivated French. It’s just a shame the middle can’t match that quality.
Riffing on similar themes of fakery and deception to his biggest hit Train Of Life — a Jewish village use a fake deportation train to bamboozle the Nazis — Mihaileanu sets up his intriguing idea in fun, engaging strokes: a disgraced conductor (a subdued Aleksei Guskov) finds a new lease of life when he intercepts an invitation for the Bolshoi orchestra to play.
As does everyone else.�
Initially, yes, the orchestra sounds like crap, and there are titters from the cultivated French crowd, and exasperation from the stuffy French critic, and worried looks back home, where the concert is being shown live on television. The Russians disperse, like the satellites of the Soviet Union itself, around Paris, and can�t be bothered to show up for practice even though they�ve never practiced together.
Meanwhile Sasha tells Anne-Marie, over the objections of Guyl�ne, that if she plays for Filipov she may find out who her true parents were.
It would also explain why he takes her out to dinner and why he is hesitant, initially, to explain why he chose her as his soloist.
He could reply, �Because you are the best.� Instead, when she asks, he launches into the tale of his undoing: how, at the Bolshoi, he had a great Jewish soloist, Lea, with whom he was going to achieve greatness in music, but how they were stopped halfway through a Tchaikovsky concert by Gavrilov for illegally employing Jewish musicians; how he was ruined and how Lea and her husband subsequently denounced Brezhnev and were sent to Siberia, where they died.
What she should say: �I still don�t see what this has to do with me.�
What she says: �You�re nice, but sick, and I refuse to play with you.�
What she�s really saying: �We need some false tension for the last third of the film to go with the false tension of who my parents are.
Filipov only agrees to do the concert if the solo violinist is Anne-Marie Jacquet (Inglourious Basterds’ Mélanie Laurent) and the mystery surrounding the connection between the two is drawn out and overwrought.
WARNING: SPOILERS
�Le concert� is French, so I assumed refined, about classical music, so I assumed refined again.
The original �Bad News Bears� and �Major League� sketch their secondary characters better, and you see them practicing together, which is why they wind up succeeding. That would explain why Jacquet�s handler, Guyl�ne de La Rivi�re (Miou Miou), initially turns down the offer to play with Filipov.
voila!
Plus: Why the subterfuge about Anne-Marie�s parents in the first place? Plus it was nominated for le meilleur film at the �09 Cesars. At first, I thought she was Filipov�s daughter�the result of a liaison with the wife of a friend.