Bessie Smyth
Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Cassandra
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Kayden
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
lawrence smith
when I read the plot summary I thought oh this looks good Brezhnev persecuting the supremely talented Jewish musicians AND punishing the supremely talented MAESTRO who throws away his career to support the persecutees. and for helping them he ends up a cleaner. such a dramatic story full of heartache and desire.then I find that it is all made up and not very well made up. the makers can't decide if it is a story about persecution and overcoming the odds OR is it some kind of a comedy with the big guy with the beard. quite disappointing really (and I don't like Tchaikovsky).By the way I don't know who tramky is but he or she is obviously a jackass.
Framescourer
A comedy that is dragged down by its own excessive sentiment, The Concert has two solid tent poles of conceit: that in a post-Communist Russia, a celebrated conductor should be a cleaner, and consequently be in a position to capitalise on an intercepted invitation to tour with his old, superior orchestra; and that the denouement should be shown intercut with the eponymous Concert, aggregating economy and impact.It's a shame that in between the film relies on cheap jokes and stereotypes. The worst of these - and it's bad - is that a Jewish father and son almost miss the final event as they are trying to make money on the streets of Paris. All sorts of situations are invented to create drama and then conveniently forgotten about when the story needs to move on. The 'getting the band back together' montage is the least believable in this line of pockmarked plotting, with all the similarly underemployed former musicians suddenly finding their instruments and demonstrating their proficiency on them without moving from their place of work.There's an interesting (if underdeveloped) political message in the film - the socialist nostalgics and the self-important, new-money oligarchs are treated as two sides of the same moron. Music is the great winner... or is it? The final scene has the protagonist musicians simply behaving the same boorish manner as their antagonists. In fact music isn't really a great winner as music films are almost impossibly tricky. Aleksey Guskov hasn't the second idea how to conduct but luckily his bear-like companion Sasha (Dmitri Nazarov) seems more likely as a brilliant, impetuous cellist. Mélanie Laurent fulfils her remit of looking pretty. Too many longueurs, partly because of the confused, oversold but inconclusive reconciliation subplot. 3/10
nimbleland
I ordered this DVD version from Amazon not realizing that it was dubbed. Amazon has taken steps to update the site. The Distribution for North America is completely dubbed in English and not a good dub at that. I did order from the UK the Original Russian/French version with English subtitles, Amazon thought my DVD Player would handle it, but the DVD Player alerted me that my TV was too old to play PAL. I did get it to play on my computer, but that defeats the whole purpose.I saw the Original at SIFF, took my Brother and his wife to see it. We were all crying at the end. The Original is a 10, and I am also aware this is related to Orchestra from Japan. Still I rate the Original a 10, the English Dubbing a 6.
onehipdad
I've wanted to see this ever since the Oscar nominations came out and I browsed the entries for BFF over breakfast - it caught my eye then as an appealing premise. I was rewarded finally on a transatlantic flight to the UK last Sunday. Though the screen was small, the noise suppression headset provided an audio banquet of delight and yes, I had several moments of laugh-out-loud appreciation for this highly-entertaining film. I've always been a sucker for Russian literature & music; I've long been amazed that some of the most powerfully impressive art has come from one of the harshest environments and span of history (indeed, I'm a third of the way thru The Brothers Karamazov right now and I haven't touched Dostoyevsky in 40 years, since high school). The movie is a balance of emotion - it touches and massages every one, with humor, sympathy, concern, disappointment, frustration, anxiety, and the music, always the music. Seeing a familiar face again (Ms. Laurent) was an unexpected bonus, and her appeal for me was the same I realize now as it was in Tarantino's film, as some unfortunate's daughter, and you can't help but desire for her comfort and happiness. Best movie of the year, so far. Oh, and I'm downloading the soundtrack now from Amazon.
