Violin Lesson

It's all about what happens when a cute Canadian teenage violin player (Harry) growing up on a rural farm falls for his best friend, John, and then Harry's dad learns about his son's homosexuality.

This film is exceptionally well-crafted. I know, most people start out with the acting and directing. I think it's the cinematography and editing that make this film worth watching. The atmospheric nature of the Canadian woods country is superbly realized here. That's not only because of the wonderful location shots (the farm, the small town), but because the cinematographer and editor worked very, very hard to create a sense of the slowness of time, the frozenness of the heart, the glacial nature of gay teenage emotion (almost similar to the way time slows down during an accident).

The film is magnificently carried on the handsome shoulders of actor Robert Sudduth, who clearly has a long and admirable career ahead of him if he continues to turn in performances as good as this. Sudduth plays Harry, the handsome violin player struggling with his homosexuality. It's clear Harry acknowledges his queerness to himself; there's an early scene in which Harry longingly if furtively looks at a gay magazine in a shop window in the small town near where his family lives.

But the problem with the film is not the character sketch drawn of Harry but the way reality is woven around him by director Robert Alan Rackham. For example, Harry gets drunk in the family barn in an attempt to drink away his troubles. The next day, Harry wakens, fully dressed in warm clothes, in the middle of a field near his home. A homeless women (her grocery bag containing a copy of the gay magazine) wanders through the field. Is this a dream sequence? It's so surreal, I made that assumption. But it is not a dream sequence at all. Indeed, it's reality.

Maybe that says something about the place and time in which Harry lives -- that the heterocentric world is surreal. But perhaps (and I think) it is that the director lost control of his picture for a moment. The images are superb, but they lose their meaning when presented out of context.

We're permitted to see bits and pieces of Harry's world: His accepting eight-year-old sister (with her naive but pure-hearted morality); his sweet-natured hunky best friend, the football-playing heterosexual John; his loving but bigoted father, Eddie.

The film ostensibly revolves around two moment in time. One is where John, Harry and Harry's little sister relax in the barn. John asks Harry to give him a violin lesson (as a way of escaping the little girl's endless doll's tea-party). Harry's violin-playing itself seems odd and incomprehensible in the rural setting: The director clearly plays off the audience's stereotypes of violin-playing as urban, intellectual and sophisticated and farming communities as rural, uneducated and lacking in appreciation for the fine arts. Violin-playing becomes a metaphor for Harry's sexuality. Is "teaching John" a metaphor for introducing him to homosexuality?

The second turning point in the film comes when Harry is caught masturbating in the barn by his father. His father assumes Harry is fantasizing about a girl, but Harry reveals (through a neat visual bit) that it's John who occupies his throughts. Dad steps on the violin, destroying it. Again, a metaphor. But this time, for what? For the now-broken relationship between father and son? For the way the father and the countryside has crushed the son's spirit?

These are beautiful images and scenes, well-acted and well-photographed. But what do they mean? At some point, a director has to consider whether his images are conveying any meaning, or if they are conveying the meaning s/he wants them to convey. And that's the difficulty with this film.

"The Violin Lesson" is, however, eminently watchable. I hope it comes out quickly on DVD. It is a terrific film.

This is a well drawn sketch of a country boy's coming out.

Our violin-playing hero is asked by his friend to show him how to play. In the sensuous scene that follows, our hero begins to question his own sexuality and the attraction that he feels for his buddy.

Later, while he watches his buddy sleep, his thoughts continue and he comes to a realization about himself.

When he reveals this realization to his father, matters come to a head, and more than assumptions are shattered.

I know that when looking at a sketch, its unfair to complain about not seeing the final painting but this is one of those cases where the audience is drawn into a really interesting story only to be brought up short. I hope that the filmmaker visits this topic again when time and budget allows a fuller telling of the story. From what's shown in the short, its obvious that the filmmaker has an interesting story to tell and has the ability to tell it.