Sandy and I were amazed that so many people in our community thought this was a wonderful film. It was so poorly produced that even the subtitles didn't make sense because they were literally translated.
These were the blurbs on the poster outside the theater advertising the film: (To me they say, "Don't expect too much").
"An uplifting comedy about a true band of misfits."
"Impersonating a world famous orchestra isn't easy unless you have the brass to pull it off."
Rather than providing you with my take on this movie . . . I'm including below excerpts from reviews of THE WASHINGTON POST, NY TIMES and VARIETY
WASHINGTON POST
This orchestra needs tuning
By Rachel Saslow
Friday, August 13, 2010
"The Concert" was so unfunny, I had to consult IMDB.com to make sure that it was indeed listed as a comedy. . . .
Many of the jokes rely on racist -- or at least culturally insensitive -- stereotypes. The gypsy fiddler travels everywhere with his enormous, loud family wearing gaudy costumes; they appear to live in trailers. The Jewish orchestra members sell black-market caviar and cellphones to make extra money while in Paris, and the Russians are perpetually drunk on vodka. Ha. Ha.
Another ongoing gag is the way Andrei butchers his French while talking to soloist Anne-Marie, saying inappropriate things and mixing up syntax. (He says, "I find you warmly" instead of "Pleasure to meet you," for example.) Apparently, this is a riot because he uses old-fashioned vernacular, but the jokes fall flat unless the viewer is fluent in Français. Was there really any hope that French jokes in a Russian movie would be funny when translated into English subtitles?
Getting the Old Band Back Together: NY Times
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
A messy, comedic sprawl that leaks at the seams, the Romanian director Radu Mihaileanu’s “Concert” aspires to be something like a French-Russian answer to “The Producers.” Lunging wildly between satirical farce and teary sentimentality, the movie follows the misadventures of a ragtag symphony orchestra that travels from Moscow to Paris under false pretenses.
Hoary stereotypes abound. Drunken Russians, thieving Gypsies, crooked oligarchs and zealous former Communist apparatchiks: all are caricatured in a story whose multiple subplots tumble over one another in a chaotic pileup.
The protagonist of “The Concert,” Andrei Filipov (Alexei Guskov), is a former musical wunderkind and conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra who fell from grace 30 years ago in an anti-Semitic purge near the end of the Brezhnev era. After flouting authority by hiring Jewish musicians, Andrei was rudely ousted midconcert during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a romantic war horse that the movie milks for its last ounce of schmaltz and then some.
VARIETY
The Concert By JAY WEISSBERG
Romanian-born French helmer Radu Mihaileanu spackles his canvas with more schmaltz than usual in "The Concert." Continuing his attraction to themes of false identity, the director presents a purged Bolshoi orchestra conductor who sees his chance to perform again by pretending to be still attached to the great institution. But the story regurgitates the usual trappings of underdog tales, milking stereotypes as well as tear ducts. Pic may appeal to the over-50 crowd in Francophone territories. .
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