Father Greg Apparcel, CSP, film critic, associate pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic American Parish in Rome, and the Paulist Fathers’ Procurator General to the Holy See, brings us his take on the 2009 movie – “The Concert” – chosen by Vatican Official and film expert, Msgr Dario Viganò, to be part of the Dicastery of Evangelization’s “Jubilee is Culture” initiative.
By Fr. Greg Apparcel, CSP
“The Concert,” a French comedy by Romanian filmmaker Radu Mihaileanu, is an interesting addition to the Jubilee’s “Faces and Counterfaces of Hope” series. It has satirical potential, despite its silliness and preposterous elements, but hope emerges in its moving third act with the Tchaikovsky concert itself.
It all starts with a rehearsal of the Bolshoi Orchestra in Moscow. We meet the theatre’s cleaner, Andrew Filipov (Alexei Guskov) who disrupts the practice with his cell phone ringing loudly. Hiding out in an empty office, he intercepts a fax inviting the Bolshoi to give a concert at the Chatelet Theater in Paris, replacing the Los Angeles Philharmonic who has cancelled at the last minute. Andrei decided to keep the fax and accept the invitation for himself and a fun group of down-on-their-luck musicians who have been his friends for thirty years. The concert is in two weeks, and they have no visas, no instruments, and no time for rehearsing.
Andrei is famously known as the Maestro who defied Premier Brezhnev thirty years earlier when he hired Jewish musicians during an anti-Semitic purge and thus was fired in the middle of a concert. Now he wants to overcome this humiliation by recreating and completing the same musical piece, Tchaikovsky’s Concert for Orchestra and Violin. For the violin solo, he insists on hiring Anne-Marie Jacquet played by the wonderful Melanie Laurent. She has never before performed this piece, but she’s intrigued about working with the famous Maestro. But who is she and why does Andrei specifically want her as his solo violinist? Is he her real father or is there some other reason?
Things go downhill once the contract is signed. They need counterfeit passports and visas. The sixty musicians end up having to walk seven kilometres to the airport. They arrive drunk and stay that way for the three days in Paris. And the one rehearsal they do have is a disaster even with just the three musicians who show up.
Andrei wants Anne-Marie to play the concert originally meant for the great violinist Lea Strum who is now deceased. “You want me to replace Lea,” she tells Andrei. “I’m not Lea. It was a dream, this concert . . .You can’t bring back the past. This concert is doomed to fail. Cancel it.”
But Andrei’s good friend, the cellist Sasha, intercedes. He visits Anne-Marie and her long-time guardian, Guylene, who herself holds many secrets. He asks Anne-Marie, “What if at the end of the concert, you find your parents?”
Not to ruin the ending, but that’s exactly what happens. The theatre is filled with 2,000 sold-out seats. A cellphone message goes out to all the drunk musicians, telling them to “Come back for Lea.” The real director of the Bolshoi, on vacation in Paris, sees the concert publicity and is outraged. Ivan, the Communist manager of the ragtag orchestra, locks the director in a closet and prays, “Work a miracle, God. Prove you exist!”
The concert begins and the orchestra plays poorly, until, that is, Anne-Marie begins the solo. Her virtuosity transports the orchestra members who rise to her skill and begin to play beautifully. Ivan cries out “O my God, I don’t believe it. You do exist!” It’s a wonderful scene as Anne-Marie plays with tears in her eyes, connecting with Andrei who conducts with equal expertise and emotion. Interplayed throughout are scenes from what happened thirty years earlier and Anne-Marie really does find her parents.
With all the unrealistic elements and silliness, “The Concert” comes through in the end with the inspiring music of Tchaikovsky and the performances of Melaine Laurent as Anne-Marie and Alexei Guskov as Andrei. It’s not a great film by any means, but it is a story filled with hope, love and perseverance.
