The film The Red Violin is a drama written and directed by filmmaker François Girard, which follows the story of a mysterious and intriguing musical instrument over 300 years. François Girard got the idea for the film from events involving the legendary Red Mendelssohn, a 1720 Antonio Stradivari violin purchased in 1990 by the grandfather of famous musician and heiress Elizabeth Pitcairn (Fricke, 2010). The story is artfully and elegantly composed, and although the story is fictional, the plot depicts what could be realistic characters, settings, and life situations. There are, however, some flaws in the film, but the entertaining qualities more than make up for them. François Girard incorporated several elements to make the film a little suspenseful and more believable; he also uses some symbolic gestures. The film is almost like a puzzle where you need one piece of the puzzle to move on to the next until all the pieces come together to show an end result, giving the film a bit of suspense. He achieves this during the scene of the auction of the red violin, the last place where the violin ends up in Montreal; and as the auction takes place, he looks back to the beginning of the violin's creation and recounts the violin's movement through history in chronological order. As it travels to each of the five countries the violin ends up in different time periods, it comes up for auction in between with a bidder representing that country and time period in one way or another ; whether it was someone who was directly involved with the violin, or indirectly. Each time he returns to the auction, he brings a new perception of events unfolding as if seen through...... middle of paper ...... iTunes store reviews give the film a rating of five stars out of five. The film probably deserves a four to four and a half star rating out of five because five out of five is perfect and while close, the film is not perfect. A common comment is that the violin causes despair in anyone who plays it. This comment contains no truth. Another common comment is that the film brings something to a wide audience; this speculation could be true because it has many different elements that can appeal to different tastes. Works Cited Fricke, R. (2010). History of the “Mendelssohn red” Stradivarius. Retrieved December 6, 2011 from http://www.elizabethpitcairn.com/html/redviolin2.asp Girard, N. (director/writer) and Fichman, N. (producer). (1998). The red violin. (Movie theater). Canada, Italy and United Kingdom.