There are two spoilers in this review. If you don't want hints, don't read this.
I was hooked from start to finish, greatly moved. The young, badly abused and herself abusive girl with genius in her hands, and the old woman unwillingly discovering this aggressive young girl is a true prodigy and then doing everything she can to get that girl a chance. The conflict between the two over what kind of music is best. The hints that arise from this conflict about the past of the older woman. The irony of how that concert performance may finally be achieved. And somewhere in the movie, I won't say where, the most astonishing piece of music is played - so very exciting.
I've twice seen particularly wonderful pieces of music performed within a movie, that is pieces I can remember that stand alone in their excellence whilst written as I understand it just for the movie. One is within Ladies of Lavender for the mysterious young violinist who seems to come from nowhere, the other for the young misfit in Vier Minuten.
This movie is unrelentingly grim much of the time, but there is great beauty too and wonderful heartwarming moments. The moral seems to be that even people who appear to be vicious, abusive, murderous, completely lost causes, may contain the most amazing gifts if only someone else has the ability and then the willingness to draw them out. Would this girl ever escape from the emotional prison of her past and the physical prison of her present? I don't know but it would be nice to think she could.
I was hooked from start to finish, greatly moved. The young, badly abused and herself abusive girl with genius in her hands, and the old woman unwillingly discovering this aggressive young girl is a true prodigy and then doing everything she can to get that girl a chance. The conflict between the two over what kind of music is best. The hints that arise from this conflict about the past of the older woman. The irony of how that concert performance may finally be achieved. And somewhere in the movie, I won't say where, the most astonishing piece of music is played - so very exciting.
I've twice seen particularly wonderful pieces of music performed within a movie, that is pieces I can remember that stand alone in their excellence whilst written as I understand it just for the movie. One is within Ladies of Lavender for the mysterious young violinist who seems to come from nowhere, the other for the young misfit in Vier Minuten.
This movie is unrelentingly grim much of the time, but there is great beauty too and wonderful heartwarming moments. The moral seems to be that even people who appear to be vicious, abusive, murderous, completely lost causes, may contain the most amazing gifts if only someone else has the ability and then the willingness to draw them out. Would this girl ever escape from the emotional prison of her past and the physical prison of her present? I don't know but it would be nice to think she could.