Message from eshorer

[Anonymous]

The Red Violin
Director: Francois Girard
The Red Violin is an interesting film that follows the “life” of a violin as it travels from Italy, to Vienna, to England, to China, and finally to Montreal, where it is being auctioned. The violin makes its way from England to China thanks to a Chinese servant who supplies opium to the English owner of the violin. The film shows a China in Mao’s time that is anti-Western in many ways, but especially as it concerns music. A Chinese music teacher is brought before a town meeting and humiliated for teaching violin and Western music. One of the party officers makes her way back to her home where she has hidden the red violin and some Western music records. She takes it to the music teacher, and he reluctantly agrees to take it and keep it safe after she is about to smash it. When he dies years later, the red violin is discovered and it joins a huge shipment of instruments that are being auctioned in Montreal.

This is an interesting film that succeeds on many levels. The Chinese segment is potent in communicating a side of China that many of us haven’t “seen.” I believe this segment would be good to show to students for the following reasons:
1) It is not a long segment.
2) It would open up a lively discussion about censorship.
3) It is subtitled, and would cause the students to read the translation.

WARNING: While the Chinese segment is acceptable for school viewing, the sexual content of certain scenes (especially the time in England) would get you in major trouble if you showed them in class.