Antonio Vivaldi, un prince à Venise (2007)
Directed by Jean-Louis Guillermou

Film Review

Jean-Louis Guillermou's follow up to his woefully inadequate Il était une fois Jean-Sébastien Bach (2003) is an equally uninspiring account of the life of another great composer, Antonio Vivaldi.  The musical biopic is a genre that has unleashed more than its fair share of mediocrity on cinema audiences but Guillermou's first two contributions to the genre are particularly poor.  It is not as if Guillermou is without talent.  He would redeem himself handsomely with his next biopic, Celles qui aimaient Richard Wagner (2011), which achieves what his Vivaldi tribute singularly fails to do - to weave an interesting drama whilst honouring a musical titan.

Michel Serrault and Michel Galabru (previously seen together in several comedies including Le Viager (1972), L'Ibis rouge (1975) and La Cage aux folles (1978)) have never looked more forlorn that they do here, lost at sea surrounding by a swarm of actors who either have no talent or a distinct lack of enthusiasm for their art.  The sumptuous locations, attractively photographed by Antoine Marteau, cannot distract us from the lack of depth in this stilted and completely unengaging drama.  Vivaldi's life story has enough incident and poignancy to make a superb piece of cinema, but this is definitely not it.  No one, least all one of the great composers of the Baroque era, deserves a biopic of this standard.  At least the music cannot be faulted.

Film Synopsis

Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in 1679.  Despite his aptitude for music, his mother made up her mind that he should enter the priesthood at the age of 14.  The young Antonio would rather compose his own music than attend mass, and it is ironic that the very illness from which he suffered as an infant should help him in his career to become one of his generation's leading composers.  The same debilitating illness would remain with Vivaldi throughout his life, but it allowed him to create some of his greatest compositions...