Le Violon Rouge plot
1681. Violin maker Nicolo Bussotti puts the finishing touches on his masterpiece: a violin for his unborn son. When Bussotti's wife dies in childbirth with the child, the violin maker is inconsolable. He paints the instrument with his wife's blood so that she will live in it forever. For the next hundred years, the violin resides in a monastery in the Swiss Alps. There the instrument is given to the young orphan Kaspar Weiss. The strict violin teacher Georges Pussin takes the child prodigy under his wing and plans to let him play at the Viennese court. But just before his debut, Kaspar dies and he is buried with the red violin in his arms. A century later, Kaspar's grave desecrated, the violin falls into the hands of decadent master violinist Frederick Pope, who becomes enchanted by the instrument.