Something odd happened to me while watching The Concert (Le Concert). Usually, I'm averse to stereotypes and over cliched characters. It is inevitable sometimes, as is the case in this film. The whole story is built by cliches, but it is funny and ironic, and so, contrary to what I usually think, it worked on this production by Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu.
Facts here are so inaccurate that I would say it is almost a fantasy movie. The characters are alive, though, and even in their stereotyped manners, they make sense and are endearing. They tell about individuals in a dictatorship, in which every aspect of human rights are ignored.
In the pursuit for the members of Bolshoi Orchestra, we see them in different jobs: janitors, ambulance drivers, ticket sellers, extras for events (this part is funny and sarcastic)... everything that makes ends meet is valid. Absurd situations are not lacking here, even the storyline itself. But all the nonsense had an important matter behind it, so I the movie was gripping, funny... it's magic even.
The Siberia part is criticized in some comments on imdb.com as inaccurate. Everything is nonsense in this movie (what to say about gypsies falsifying passports under the eye of authorities, in the middle of an airport? Sheer irony by an absurd situation), except what is truly important: wronged artists trying to get back to what is important to them, doing justice to people that have lost their lives to dictatorial governments. That makes immensely sense, and was enough for me in this movie. And even with the paralysed image that I hate so much at the end, the last scene was overwhelmingly beautiful.
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| The Concert (Le Concert). Directed by Radu Mihaileanu. With: Aleksey Guskov, Mélanie Laurent, Dmitriy Nazarov. Writers: Radu Mihaileanu et al, based on the original story by Hédtor Cabello Reyes and Thierry Degrandi. France/Italy/Romania/Belgium/Russia, 2009, 119 min., Dolby Digital, Color/Black and White (Cable TV). |
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