The Red Violin (DVD)

The Red Violin is a ghost story about a bewitched object, but it's far more subtle and insidious than anything you'll see rolling off the Asia Extreme assembly line this week. Soon to be released on DVD by The Meridian Collection, it's highbrow horror. Starring Samuel L. Jackson. Yep. I said Samuel L. "Snakes on a Plane" Jackson.

Predating the slithery serpents, haunted hotel rooms and a chained Christina Ricci, "Le Violon Rouge" is 10 years behind Jackson, but hopefully ahead of many viewers thanks to a spiffy new presentation on DVD, along with some brand new additional release material.

The tragic tale follows gore-tinged and perfect-pitched musical instrument, crafted in a fit of passionate rage, as it wends its way through centuries of players, lovers, furies, obsessives and historical catalysts, ultimately ending up at an upscale auction where various bidders want it, for various reasons. While some know the story of its blood-drenched origins, none of them are afraid of its curse: Its siren song is far too strong to resist.

There are several spoken languages flowing throughout the movie, including Chinese, Italian, English, German, and French, which add to the vicarious experience of the vexed violin and its journey through the ages. The music never changes though; its remains classical, as do the storylines: when the stringed spirit is an abandoned "baby", it's in the hands of a small Austrian orphan. In adolescence, the foxy fiddle experiences first love in a tempestuous affair of the heart. As it matures and contemplates the seriousness of the world, the violin bows to pressure and is caught up in cruel Red politics. And so on. In each incarnation, those who play it come to grief. In time, it became known as "the Devil's instrument", and for many decades, it simply disappeared.

Not only is the high-prod French-Canadian movie well-acted and supremely gorgeous in both the visual and aural senses, it's highly memorable and thought-provoking. While it's never truly scary and no traditional horror elements are played up in any way, the notion that there's a phantom at work in the woodgrain is never far from mind.

The Meridian Collection DVD has a brand new commentary by director François Girard and his co-screenwriter Don McKellar. It's interesting to hear them talk about the movie with so much perspective (their memories — if sometimes contradictory — are mighty impressive). There's also a making-of featurette on the movie's Oscar-winning score (by composer John Corigliano), and a quite fascinating series of interviews about the "lost" Stradivarius that loosely inspired the story, including some insights from its current owner on what it's like to coax notes from such a notorious entity.

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