How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Life, music, love, and tragedy: four elements beautifully linked together in this Tognazzi's great Italian cinema jewel. Two musicians; a superb romance destroyed by the Nazis in its culminating happiness; a vague memory sprung by the notes of a violin's music piece; an astounding film, and a delightful score by Ennio Morricone which illustrates a love story between a violinist (Jeno) and a pianist (Sophie), both stigmatized by their Jewish origins.The first time I saw this film at Rome I was broken to tears... and every time I see it I can't fight with all the deep emotions and feelings this visual jewel provokes on me. I always finish crying, despite the hundred times I've seen it. The original story by Paolo Maurensig set in Italy here is placed during the nazi regime and the '68 Praga Spring, and I think that Tognazzi's choice is just accurate: it gives a historical, hence global, dimension to a tragedy based in endless love. How superb characterizations those of Thierry and Matheson, according to me superior to those of Winslet and DiCaprio in "Titanic"...!!! "Canone Inverso" demonstrates that you don't need to sink billionaire ships nor use info graphic (and expensive) effects to make a great, unforgettable film: only good actors, good story, good direction and good music are needed. If you're gonna do something, do it with all the passion of your soul, because life goes, and suddenly you could see all things gone away... life itself. Enjoy every second, love as if you would never do it again, live with intensity... I mean, make love to life at every moment. These are the inner messages of the film, treated in an elegant (European) way, without any Hollywoodean artificial taste. This is "ars gratia artis" cinema, and you will never forget it!!!!! When showing this movie to my university students at film clubs or school movies festivals, I've always made an "experiment": I ask them to close their eyes and listen the "Concerto Interrotto" end title music after seeing the entire movie. No one can stop the tears!!!!! That's the power of this Morricone's soundtrack: this is not Hollywood adagio sound (thank God!!!!), but an allegro con fuoco that only talks about joy, passion and contained pleasure... Despite the "Twilight" (awful!!!!) saga that has contaminated their young, tender souls, my pupils fall in love with Sophie and Jeno; because these characters are not superstupidheroes, nor they have strange (idiot) powers: they're just two boys that want to love, to have a chance to live; they're two young talents with all against them, only with their music as a sword and their love as a guide. They're so fragile, so passionate, so defenseless... so human. This is my film number one, and its soundtrack my favorite one. If I had to go to the moon in order to scape the crazy 2012 "world's end" circus, I would take with me this movie. Give yourselves the pleasure to admire it, and you'll know why. After seeing it, and when you'll make something with passion, 'cause you like to do it, you will say like me: "stiamo faccendo l'amore"!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm a hopeless romantic for love stories and classic music. I happened upon this gem of a movie by chance while searching for films that had Lee Williams cast in them. This young actor amazed me in another film called No Night Is Too Long. His sensitivity is abundant in this one as well. An extremely handsome expressive face, he plays his role of David with great depth. Add to this the excellent acting of his fellow actors, Hans Matheson in the leading role of a young violinist who falls in love with Sophie, played beautifully by Melanie Thierry, a concert pianist. The three stars bring honest performances in their fated relationships in the world of music and pre-Nazi Europe. The Photography was brilliant and the direction by Ricky Tognazzi, son of famed director Ugo Tognazzi, was wonderful.In supporting roles I also liked Gabriel Byrne and director Tognazzi himself playing the father of both of the young men. If you get a chance to see this, do so. For you'll love the music, scenery and fine acting by an excellent cast.

I just saw this film at the Newport Beach Film Festival (CA, USA) and it really moved me. I decided to see it because Gabriel Byrne was in it, but I found a lot more to enjoy. Namely the three young actors chosen to play Jeno, Sophie, and David. They were fantastic, especially Hans Matheson (Jeno). I was captivated by each of them, by how well they conveyed love, fear, joy, and sadness throughout the film, often with just the expressions on their faces. Ennio Morricone provided his usual elegant score behind it all. And the scenery was beautiful, in a very Eastern European crumbly building kind of way.Anyone who appreciates good music and good film should keep an eye out for this one. There are some minor plot flaws, some of the scenes border on schmaltzy, and they definitely shoot for the tear ducts at the end, but it's still worth watching.

Saw this at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2000, and this was the worst European movie I saw this year. It has a ridiculous plot, silly twists, English actors who portray in English characters that would speak Czech and German shot somewhere in the Czech Republic. The only time someone speaks the language they should is when a German soldier is shouting "get away from here!"... Has subtle yet very strange gay-erotic undertones - and that is between two characters that end up being brothers! - very uninspiring acting and very badly written characters. Some actors do not look their character's age and if you really try and create the geneology of this broken family - you would come to some very strange conclusions (I refer you to the fact that Jeno's mother has a second child when he is about 20 yet she looks not a day over 25, Sophie looks like 13 years old but married to a guy over 40 and Jeno meets her when he is about 18, Costanza was born in a concentration camp (?!) and in 1974 looks like 21 instead of over 30 and so on). This is an example of what happens when good talents try to create a film that would sell "internationally", i.e. will be sold under the American distribution system. You get a horrible muddled plot spoken i the wrong language and shot in the best/worst way Italian manure can be shot in. It is artistically for the ignorant who won't even notice that the Cannon Inverso is not truly an inversed canon.. Now how dumn is that?! Avoid unless you want to see beautiful shooting locations. The music is OK but gets the standard not-more-than-2-minutes-a-piece-please attitude. A shame to the amazing legacy of Italian film making.