This story follows a priceless musical instrument over three hundred years’ time, as it changes hands several times, travels around the world and barely escapes destruction on several occasions before being recovered and put up for auction in the present day. It’s unique in that this is perhaps the only movie I’ve ever seen where entire sections are acted out in four different languages besides English. On the DVD version I watched, no subtitles were provided in the film itself. At first I kept stopping the DVD and turning on the English subtitles (for the hearing impaired) during these parts just so I could understand what was going on. I find subtitles distracting, however, especially when the film switches back to parts where the actors are speaking in English again. I eventually just let the movie play through without subtitles and found that I was able to gather enough information about the story simply by observing the body language and mannerisms of the characters. The film includes French, German, Chinese (Mandarin), and Italian in addition to English. Besides the annoyance of the subtitle issue (I’ve read elsewhere that they were included in the theatrical version), this Canadian-made film is a masterpiece.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 10:56 am and is filed under R.