The film "The Concert" (directed by Romanian R. Mihaileanu, 2009), is a sympathetic showcase of the deep yearnings of the human heart. A sort of fairy tale about the Russian Bolshoi Orchestra (Moscow), whose activities had been banned in the Brezhnev era. Its members were declared "enemies of the People" and its director, Andrei Filipov, dismissed for not expelling the Jewish musicians and interrupted in plenary session of the Executive Council concert by the KGB, becoming a cleaner of the premises.

Thirty years later, they are presented with an opportunity for revenge, with a concert at the prestigious musical theater of the Châtelet, in Paris. In addition to seeking out his former musicians - who are living as best they can - Andrei hires a well-known French violinist, Anne Marie. They have dinner together the day before the concert.

She confesses that she never knew her parents, a biologist and an anthropologist, who died in a plane crash in the Alps: "Since I was a child, I have always looked for my parents' gaze... When I play, what I would like to get is their gaze for a second, just for a second". Andrei tells her what happened to him thirty years ago: he tells her about Lea, a Jewish violinist, and her husband Isaac. And of what happened that day, playing Tchaikovsky's Concerto for violin and orchestra. He remembers Lea in particular: "Her magic violin took me and the orchestra to heaven... We all flew, together with the audience, to the last harmony... But the concert ended in the middle... We fell from very high...".

But Anne Marie responds by telling him that it's crazy now: the musicians are not quite what they used to be, Andrei has become a drinker... and she has never played Tchaikovsky: - "I am not Lea. And together we wouldn't get the last harmony...We shouldn't do this concert together. It would be a failure."

One of the musicians, the Jewish Sacha, tries to convince her, telling her that maybe at the end of the concert she will meet her parents: - "Music sometimes gives us financial aid to grow up. It gives us answers. We have doubts before playing music, and fear of the truth...".

Andrei and Sacha, and Anne Marie's manager, all seem to know who Anne Marie's parents were, but they do not tell her. They want her to find out, precisely through her violin and the concert in which she will play Tchaikovsky, on a score written down years ago by Lea...

Let's leave the rest in suspense (1) and return to our reality. In 2009, months before the film's release, Radio France-Bleu (Grenoble) particularly praised the "humanity" of the film, which knows how to present thorny issues with intelligence and good humor (2). The director pointed out that, indeed, "the stake, the topic of the film is friendship, solidarity... the mixing of cultures, encounters". It is a metaphor for the cultural "invasion" of the East in Western Europe, which produces a somewhat explosive mixture. He wants to show - he goes on to explain -, with attention to the historical context, that the human being is always there and can be proud of himself; to remember that "today, when our small planet is going through a difficult time, the human being is still beautiful and worthy". As John Underwood, English science film critic, has written, this film opens the eyes, ears and heart of the viewer (3).

Music, friendship, beauty. In the Christian perspective, it is appropriate - using the terminology of C.S. Lewis - to recall the three loves (affection, friendship, "eros") that are a reflection and a way to discover and live charity (divine love). Charity perfects human loves and, respecting them in their highest beauty, truth and goodness, transforms them into praise of God and service to others. In this way, the film invites us to reach "the ultimate harmony" of the human horizon. Hence, a Christian should always ask himself how he is responding to the "loves" that God has sown in his life, until it becomes a testimony and commitment to Love.

The film's main theme is the value of friendship: sample . The relationships of friendship - which arise on the occasion of the musicians' professional work and are intertwined with family relationships - can be seen, in fact, as a radiance of divine love, which calls to participate in it, in order to make "a new world" (cf. Rev. 21:5).

As for music, like all art, it is a gift of God and development of man, an expression of human life and hope, for "each person is entrusted with the task of being the artisan of his own life; in a certain sense, he must make of it a work of art, a masterpiece" (John Paul II, Letter to Artists, n. 2). On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his election (April 29, 2010), Benedict XVI pointed out the important place of music in the Education, especially for young people: "Music is capable of opening minds and hearts to the dimension of the spirit and of leading people to raise their gaze to the Highest, to open themselves to the absolute Good and Beauty, which have their ultimate source in God".

(1) The final scene (13:16') can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTUfpkIq3cI.
(2) It can be heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQSgpIrXKc&feature=related.
(3) The review at http://bestforfilm.com/film-reviews/drama/le-concert/