If the great violin-maker’s therapist had said, "Now Niccolo, I’m concerned about your need for things being perfect," there would be no story of a red violin. If he had settled for his work being only "good," we would have missed the mystical passion and fire that transcend this world and make this story so compelling.

Congreve wrote, "Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak." In this film, we see how music certainly can influence a life, but the theme is more the "perfect" union of love and beauty, in spite of Music’s starring role.

Immediately, even as the opening credits appear, John Corigliano’s music draws in our senses by its charismatic sweetness. This segues into 17th C. Italy where Alain Dostie, photographer, visually seduces us with warm, subtle, atmospheric shading reminiscent of a da Vinci painting. The "Madonna" appears. Yet, as we become comfortable in this romantic setting, we also feel a sense of foreboding as the real world seeks a spiritual connection with the future. The servant’s caring face is too caring, the pregnant woman, too beautiful, everything just a little too perfect, and ...we become anxious.

François Girard, the film’s director, is an expert at creating this angst. He shows us Niccolo’s passion for perfection in his work as well as his intense passion for his wife. At her death, this consuming combination, charged by a single act, created a "Lazarous soul" of a life able to transcend time and affect the lives of those who were fated to come into contact with Bussotti’s "perfect" instrument.

These accounts are guided by the prognostications of Bussoti’s servant who thinks she is reading his wife’s fortune. She directs us through four centuries featuring various stories of the provenance of the violin. In each of these accounts, the violin’s contagious spirit impassions the owner often to a point of bittersweet destruction. As the red violin’s "voice," Joshua Bell’s playing is exactly the sort of inspiration Bussoti had in mind when he desired that his son should impress the world with music. He repeatedly moves us with his heartfelt expressions.

There is no escaping the direct use of the color red in these scenes. The color red and its variations of maroon and mahogany abound throughout, in the costumes as well as in the props and settings. All of this color’s generalized representation of the humour, blood, are displayed … as we experience the corresponding affliction, arousal, lust, desire, and disgrace of each featured character. Even the Communist (Red) party’s cultural injustices are explored. Girard deliberately jerks us into present day and it works well. Our senses are jolted and bounced with the starkness of Duval’s auction house and the eagerness of prospective bidders. We are in a loop of the present and past, a technique that further romanticizes the violin’s mystery.

It is no accident that Charles Moritz, renowned appraiser, well played by Samuel Jackson, possesses many of Niccolo Bussotti’s character traits. He is just as passionate in his search for the "perfect marriage of science and beauty" as Bussotti "with all (his) heart" was in creating his violin. In a wonderful moment of reflection, we feel Moritz’s kinship as he gazes at his bare-chested image next to a blown-up portrait of Bussotti. With this quick scene, Girard, again, takes us on that anxious rollercoaster journey to our eventual enlightenment.

In these times of fast food and disposable "this and that," it is refreshing to stop not only to indulge our senses, but also to contemplate the beauty of the devotion and passion of a man who would not settle for something being merely "good."