People people people. Whew. Let's not be hasty, selfish or unreasonable. Sure this movie had it's flaws. The Locale's may have seemed just a teensy bit artificial(the most common critique), but downing the movie because Sam Jackson "stole" the violin, and on top of that attributing it to his color is downright UNCALLED FOR!<br /><br />And further more, to say that "the times we live in" are the reason for us over looking the fact the violin was whisked away immorally is a clear fall back on cliche for a lack of intelligence. Because that's what this person is challenging. The morality of what Jackson did in the closing moments of the movie. If we were to really analyze the morality from each owner to the next, we would find that morality was not really the wave of fortune the violin was riding on(it was stolen from a grave for crying out loud, not to mention almost burned for simply being... a violin). If not liking it because of it's closing immorality is not missing the point and the essence and the true exsistence of this film, then I don't know what is.<br /><br />This movie, as shockingly revealed as it was, was not about the life of this inanimate object. Surely the violin did not have a life. It was merely the carrier for the essence of the character of Anna Bussotti, Nicolo's wife. Because he used her to complete the instrument, it was endowed with her essence. That is where you are to find your morality in the tale. That life, our life, our essence, our being, is lived not only in our bodies, in these pathetic heaps of flesh and bone, but in everything around us. The morality is that Nicolo's love for his wife, made her immortal in the violin, and her song, was a gift passed down to each of the ones touched by the violin's life.<br /><br />Therefore it is quite inconsequential, the morality of the people(and their actions) and events surrounding the violin, to say that it is the times we live in, or the race of the man stealing the violin, because the story encompasses a much higher enlightenment. Easily seen, too, if you don't analyze the mistemperments and shortcomings of the people surrounding the voilin to a point where they consume your vision, blocking the "true" lesson or moral, or whatever you want to call it. The lesson, or better put: the essence of "life".<br /><br />Tres bien by Girard. An easy 10/10.