Canone inverso - Making Love

By the beautiful novel by Paolo Maurensig. It is the story of a Steiner violin and of his young owner Jeno Varga. It's a romantic drama filmed in Praha. Wonderful good music by Claude Debussy... I really enjoyed this film. Oh, by the way, Paolo Maurensig is from Udine, my town, in Italy...

I saw this movie with a large group of Jewish Film Festival Patrons and the

overall impression of everyone I spoke to was overwhelmingly positive.

Regardless of age or gender, this film touches and makes one feel truly moved. The performances were outstanding throughout the film. The actor who

portrayed Jeno Varga was inspirational. The actor who played Sofie Levy was

luminously beautiful. The film itself was filled with interesting plot twists and a interesting "mystery." The culmination was fulfilling and inspirational. The film also had great cinematography. While this was not a "perfect" film and one

could point out "flaws" in the ages or some details of the film, none of that distracts from this WONDERFUL film. For ANYONE (Jew, non-Jew, male,

female, young or old) wanting to see a genuinely touching and inspirational film about music, life, love, and a bit of everything, see Canone Inverso, a really delightful film.

Fabio Cianchetti's photography, Hans Matheson's passion and Ennio Morricone's music can't save this one... Sloppy direction and impossible age differences riddle this entangled plot and, eventually sink it. What remains is Beautiful locations in Czeck Republic, a few well handled minor roles (Giordano, Prodan and Pappalardo), and the conviction that music and love are twins. What Mr. Maurensig the author of the original, fine Novel thought of this cinematic spaghetti is a mystery.... we have our opinion. Nonetheless, if you are at a loss for cinema viewing and are a lover of pretty faces and Violin music... well, maybe "Canone Inverso" by director/actor(?!) Ricky Tognazzi, son-it appears of the great Ugo Tognazzi, will suit you quite nicely!

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.

I consider it one of the best movies in the history of Italian cinema. The book is very beautiful and the Director Ricky Tognazzi as been able to trasform the book in a masterpiece of cinema. You can feel love beetwen the man and the woman, and beetween friends and brothers, you can feel love for music. It's very dramatic and intense. Hans Matheson is the best actor, but Melanie Thierry is so a loving woman. All actors are very clever. It's a film that moves people towards love. Love is the centre of existence. This film is for all lovers.