The Red Violin

Director Francois Girard had better watch out: He's carved a niche crafting arty films for the classical music crowd, but the rapturous emotion of music is notoriously difficult to capture. THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD worked gloriously, but Girard's new film plays like so much pretentious pap. Girard structures the film around, yes, a violin that passes through various hands, starting in 17th-century Italy and ending up in contemporary Montreal. Its creator, autocratic master violin maker Nicolo Bussotti (Carlo Cecchi) is a nasty perfectionist whose bad karma catches up with him: He crafts a perfect instrument for his unborn son, but his lovely wife (I...