The past, present and future all come together in the rousing final scene of The Concert, a drama that doubles as a comedy of errors, in which music symbolises the epitome of harmony and happiness. In particular, the music is Tchaikovsky's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major and the concert is the incongruous coming together of many intangibles including a cobbled-together orchestra, a conductor who has not conducted for 30 years and a young violin star yearning for the parents she has never known. Everyone has a different agenda, including the KGB, the mafia, a talent agent and the Paris theatre director, in whose splendid establishment the film's climactic scenes play out. It's a film of highs and lows and wonderful contrasts and whose emotional palette tilts from the high to the low-brow.

It takes no time at all for us to catch on to the fact that Aleksei Guskov's Andreï Filipov, once an acclaimed conductor, is now working as a cleaner at the Bolshoi. A wild idea becomes a reality when an opportunity in the form of a piece of paper slides out of a fax machine. It is clear when Filipov and his cellist turned ambulance driver Sacha Grossman (Dmitri Nazarov) approaches Ivan Gavrilov (Valeriy Barinov) to negotiate the fraudulent deal with Paris' Theatre du Chatelet, that they have a turbulent history. 'We have to be demanding and temperamental,' Gavrilov insists as the conditions are set and we quickly see the obstacles that need to be overcome. Watch out for the airport scene in which 55 unlikely-looking Russian musicians are queuing up with their ID photos for their fake passports.

Director Radu Mihaileanu's film is an ambitiously complex one that marries the sublime with the ridiculous. Brashness and elegance sit side by side from language gaffs to the harmonious music that communicates far better than words. Mélanie Laurent is perfectly cast as star violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet, while Miou-Miou is great as Guylène the agent and confidante who knows more about the intervals between the notes than she lets on. The Concert is the unification of the individual and the collective, whose dreams miraculously transpire by default or by design and whose journey is as unique as the notes Tchaikovsky has written in his marvellous Concerto.

Urban Cinefile