MovieChat Forums > Le violon rouge (1999) Discussion > Ending was enraging

Ending was enraging

posted 18 years ago by Rommel52744
88 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, this movie was good for the most part. But that ending was ridiculous. (Spoilers) I heard it mentioned in another post that Sam Jackson's character was "saving" the violin from people who only view it from a historical standpoint, but that is quite clearly not the case. All of the bidders seemed soley interested in its historical value, true. All except for one, the chinese dude with the thick glasses, who is obviously a reference to the chinese kid with thick glasses in the chinese segment.

Here was a guy who's mother's last act towards him was to play to him the violin, in an effort to show him its beauty. Then he is forced to give her up as a result, and she is executed (which we know not only from the ferocious methods of the Cultural Revolution, but because the fortune teller said that she would be judged guilty). I don't know about you... but i'd say that if I was that kid, the instrument that my mom last showed me before she got slaughtered would contain juuuuust a smidgen of sentimental value. I mean, common, seriously, I know Sam would like his daughter to have a nice gift for christmas, but I think the Chinese guy deserves it more. If it wasn't for that, I probably would have liked the movie as a whole. Can anyone show me where I've gone wrong?

[–] Felixthecat34213 9 years ago

I think that was kind of the point in a way, Moritz's motives were meant to be selfish.

Does anyone really deserve the violin though? I don't think the Chinese boy deserved it more than the monks who ran the monastery (and had taken care of that violin for over a century), but the point is that they all had their own self motivating reasons for being there and bidding on the violin. What makes their reasons more important than Moritz's reasons? Morris gave it to his daughter at the end of the film anyway, which as someone mention earlier might be an incarnation of Anna.

It's a film with a grey ending, it's not an ending we're used to in cinema. In a way it almost feels unresolved, but the point is that the violin has been reborn and will continue moving on, the way it's supposed to. A violin is not meant to be a historical artifact on display, it's meant to be played. In order for the violin to grow richer in quality, it has to keep moving on to different people. It needs to be played. If it stayed in someone's private collection for years or decades it would lose its dark, resonate tonal quality.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] MoviemanCin 8 years ago

That's a great point, Rommel. I was kind of disappointed also, cause he just stole it, and that is wrong.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

[–] kaskait 8 years ago

I think the point of the film is that the violin is cursed. It is an instrument of heartbreak for a lost and loved wife, child and a violin maker left alone only with sorrow.

Jackson was under the spell and it made him steal it which he never would have done if it was any other violin in question.

Considering what he knows about it, I don't know why he would want his child to touch it.