Le concert radu mihaileanu biography books

The right notes

Official Selection, European Film Awards 2010

Comedies make you laugh, and tragi-comedies do too, but how to describe Radu Mihaileanu’s latest film Le concert (2009)?

Its Russian settings, with hilarious takes on all the cliches we’ve come to expect of post-Cold War Russia – thuggish, gun-toting Mafia lords and their cash approach to culture, aging Communists longing for the good old Soviet days, Everyman (and Everywoman) scrounging to raise a ruble in the crudely capitalistic present – will make you laugh until you cry.

The frenzied action never lets up – it might even strike some as a bit over the top, like a Kusturica film – even when the troupe is unleashed on a sedate and unsuspecting Paris.

But the tears you’ll shed during the climactic concert – a faux Bolshoi orchestra attempting to recreate a Brezhnev-era musical moment that was cruelly cut short – will be tears of joy.

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