Watch The Concert

The Concert, known as Le Concert in the original French, is a movie that celebrates the joy of music and shows that it’s a joy that can’t be subdued by politics or any other force trying to dictate it. The story begins with the main character Andrei Filipov working as a janitor in the office of the orchestra he used to lead. Thirty years ago, he was a famous conductor, until his political beliefs made him a depressed outcast. Despite what he feels about himself, he has a reputation abroad not just for being a fantastic conductor but for being a man who possesses admirable morals. He is famous for his conviction in standing up against anti-Sematism and suffering the loss of his career for his brave actions.

He learns of this reputation, and with a new hope to return to the music scene thirty years after he disappeared, he intercepts an invitation for the Bolshois to play in France and plans to impersonate the new Russian conductor of the Bolshoi.

To pull off his plan to steal the show in Paris, he needs to round up his old orchestra of eighty musicians and get them playing to Bolshoi standards in two weeks; but getting them ready seems to take a miracle. His old band members have spread all over Russia, and have lived diverse lives outside of music. Trying to mold them back together into something resembling what they once were doesn’t work as easily as he plans, and what he assembles is a band of misfits whose only bond is their connection to the universal joy of music.

The Concert was directed by Radu Mihaileanu, the famous director of Live and Become. The star of the film is Melanie Laurent, who is a French actress made famous in the United States by her role costarring with Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz in the Oscar winning 2009 film Inglorious Bastards, which was directed by Quentin Tarantino.

The Concert is a 2010 drama with a runtime of 1 hour and 47 minutes. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.5 and a MetaScore of 60.