《琴韻動(dòng)我心》是一部令人難以忘懷的電影。故事講述了一位居住在美國(guó)的俄裔鋼琴老師，索沙茲卡夫人，她對(duì)教學(xué)的熱情和認(rèn)真程度令人敬佩。她相信自己的職責(zé)不僅僅是教人彈琴，更是教導(dǎo)學(xué)生品味人生。在故事中，索沙茲卡夫人遇到了一位名叫曼尼克的十五歲印度少年。她對(duì)曼尼克的要求非常嚴(yán)格，要求他絕對(duì)服從。然而，曼尼克的人生態(tài)度卻因索沙茲卡夫人以前的一名女學(xué)生珍妮的男朋友的游說而發(fā)生了改變。這位男生一直在勸說曼尼克出來演奏賺錢。他認(rèn)為曼尼克的才華應(yīng)該被更多人所知，并且可以通過音樂來改變他的生活。這個(gè)提議引起了曼尼克內(nèi)心的沖突。他開始思考自己對(duì)音樂的態(tài)度，以及音樂對(duì)他人生的意義。電影通過曼尼克的成長(zhǎng)過程展現(xiàn)了音樂的力量和影響。曼尼克逐漸明白，音樂不僅僅是一種藝術(shù)形式，更是一種表達(dá)情感和傳遞信息的工具。他開始意識(shí)到自己對(duì)音樂的熱愛，并決定追隨自己的夢(mèng)想。《琴韻動(dòng)我心》不僅僅是一部關(guān)于音樂的電影，更是一部關(guān)于成長(zhǎng)和自我發(fā)現(xiàn)的電影。它通過故事中的人物和情節(jié)，向觀眾傳遞了許多深刻的思考和啟示。這部電影讓人們重新審視自己對(duì)音樂和生活的態(tài)度，引發(fā)了對(duì)內(nèi)心真實(shí)渴望的思考。它讓觀眾感受到了音樂的魅力，同時(shí)也給予了他們勇氣去追尋自己的夢(mèng)想。

Madame Sousatzka (MacLaine), an Russian-American immigrant in London, a pianist-manqué-turned-piano-teacher, is a bitter middle-aged spinster, lives alone in her cluttered apartment with pictures of many a prodigious musician, some of them are her students.

Her harridan temperament doesn’t stop her from getting promising students, simply because she is a goddam competent teacher, her latest protégé is a 16-year-old Manek (Chowdhry) of Bengali extraction, whom she deems to have great potentiality, but high hopes breeds complications, not least the conflict between Manek’s overprotective single mother Sushila (a perversely feisty Azmi radiates animation and street-smart) and Sousatzka who has been building an increasingly close bond with the young boy.

As she proudly professes, Sousatzka not only teaches musicology, but life itself as well, and she is not malleable of her disciplines, particularly regarding when Manek will be ready for public performance, problems arise when Manek is approached by producer Ronnie (Lawson) to arrange his debut performance, and a rival music teacher Leo (Rietty) may have his own design on snatching Manek under his tutelage. But, what director John Schlesinger flintily homes in on is that their extant teacher-student rapport is already insalubrious, it is the overflowing maternal affection Manek receiving on a daily basis from two “mothers” that drives him away from Sousatzka, the sad truth is that it is a lesson the latter fails to learn from, and Manek is simply not the first.

Be that as it may, Ms. MacLaine vigorously injects a spit-fire assurance into her character, she takes no prisoners in magnifying a lonely woman’s hardened obstinacy. Occasionally smitten with the glimpses of a dreadful past that she thinks is the bane of her failure, she is equally eloquent in quieter, even wordless scenes. Sousatzka is anything but a warm person, habitually leery of anyone around her, as if the whole world is scheming against her, and never for one second, she lowers down her guard in front of other people. However, we do feel for her in the end, skulked by a dashed dream and an unfulfilled life, it is more than understandable that she pours all her energy to nurture those unpolished gems and sometimes, overreaches herself for her role in their lives, and who can be the wiser?

On a lesser note, MADAME SOUSATZKA genuinely finds a surrogate family in the residents of the shambly building where Sousatzka resides, Dame Peggy Ashcroft’s last screen role is the kind-hearted Lady Emily and Twiggy as Jenny, a talentless wannabe-singer, is problematically served as Manek’s age-inappropriate crush for her outward allure only.

As a protean wire-puller, Schlesinger stages a series of almost mind-bending sequences with frenzy in Sousatzka’s studio whenever she harangues Manek or lays into various interruptions, and during the final concert, a visceral whirlpool of suspense and elation is remarkably palpable along with all the simulated musical virtuosity and positively, MADAME SOUSATZKA stands on its own as the last great picture made by Schlesinger in his fairly extraordinary career.

referential entries: Schlesinger’s MARATHON MAN (1976, 7.3/10); Damien Chazelle’s WHIPLASH (2014, 8.7/10).