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Canone inverso

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Canone inverso

Canone inverso – Making Love, also known as The Inverse Canon, is a 2000 Italian drama film directed by Ricky Tognazzi. It is based on the 1996 novel Canone Inverso by the Italian author Paolo Maurensig.

The plot concerns how a distinctive violin with an anthropomorphic carved scroll changed hands, the friendship of two young violinists, and the love of one of them for a concert pianist. The film opens at the time of the Prague Spring, but the main events take place prior to World War II in Czechoslovakia.

Although an Italian production, the film is entirely in English, and involves anglophone, Italian and French actors.

Variety noted that "Performances generally are fine, with Matheson and Williams bringing plenty of vigor and spirit, and Thierry [...] supplying some delicate grace notes".

At an auction a young woman, Costanza, is outbid for an old violin and pursues the successful bidder, an old man, outside, explaining why she wanted it so much. She recounts how, two years previously in 1968 during the Prague Spring, she was in a pub with friends when a man entered and insisted on playing his violin for her. The young woman, who does not know her parents, recalled the tune somehow from her childhood; she ran after the violinist, who told her his name was Jeno Varga and recounted the story of two boys who met in the late 1930s, at a music academy in Prague. The boys, David Blau from a rich background and Jeno, became close friends. Jeno grew up on a poor farm with his mother and step-father; his father had abandoned wife and son, but left them a rare violin and the music of a 'canone inverso'.

Jeno, who has heard the married, French concert pianist Sophie Levi on the radio tries to contact her. After his mother dies in childbirth he returns to Prague and finds Sophie again, telling her of his passion for music, and, discovering their mutual attraction, she eventually helps him secure a place at a strict music school there, where he and David become great friends.

At a special New Year's dinner in 1939 at the academy, the guest of honour is Sophie Levi; the director announces the auditions for a principal violin to play alongside Sophie in a public concert. As the professor Weigel leaves the jury during the auditions (making it inquorate) the two candidates left are Jeno and David, but Nazis arrive at the college and dismiss director Hischbaum and all those students of Jewish origin, including David. To remain with his friend, Jeno hits Weigel and gets expelled, and is invited by David to his palatial home. On arrival David shows Jeno the gallery of ancestral portraits – from which David admires only one, of a woman named Costanza. David's mood darkens when he sees Jeno's original violin and this turns to resentment as he recognizes the instrument which his father claimed to have lost during the Great War. The next day Hischbaum arrives at the Blau residence to finish the audition.

David chooses the duet of the reverse canon that Jeno also knows. Shortly the boys realize that they are half-brothers, but following his rejection by David, Jeno goes to play in the concert with Sophie, who was supposed to be fleeing Czechoslovakia because of anti-Semitic laws, but returns for the concert, abandoning her husband at the station. Before the concert, in the dressing room, Jeno and Sophie make love. During the concert, David arrives with the precious violin, but the SS enter and arrest all the Jewish musicians, including Jeno and Sophie.

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