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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Red Violin (1999)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Bow Peeps

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Red Violin on DVD

This is a surprisingly exciting and delicate epic filmed in several different countries and languages, by writer/director Francois Girard, (32 Short Films About Glenn Gould). The movie follows the 300 year-history of a beautiful and perfect violin, which is imbued with its maker's dead wife's spirit. In a 1990's auction several characters who have a history with the violin bid on it. Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant as a violin expert who wants the violin for himself. The movie stumbles on a few conventional moments now and then, but it works well all the same. Greta Scacchi (The Player) also stars.

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Don McKellar, Carlo Cecchi, Irene Grazioli, Jean-Luc Bideau, Christoph Koncz, Jason Flemyng, Greta Scacchi, Sylvia Chang, Liu Zifeng, Colm Feore, Monique Mercure
Written by: François Girard, Don McKellar
Directed by: François Girard
MPAA Rating: R for some sexuality
Language: French, English, Mandarin, Italian, German, with English subtitles
Running Time: 131 minutes
Date: June 18, 1999