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La Danse (DVD)
Year: 2009
Rating: PG
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Cast: Pierre Lacotte, Brigitte Lefevre, Delphine Moussin
Release Date: April 06, 2011
Distributor: Director's Suite
The Film: 3.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“...intrigues thanks to its free-forming, detail-orientated approach to the world of modern ballet.”
This Frederick Wiseman-directed documentary may lack much in the way of a conventional story, but intrigues thanks to its free-forming, detail-orientated approach to the world of modern ballet.
Closer to Robert Altman's realist The Company than Darren Aronofsky's stylised, expressionistic Black Swan, La Danse ignores the need for a traditional narrative and its elements such as character, resolution and conflict.
More like an exercise in mood and tone, the observational documentary details the experiences of the Paris Opera Ballet as they attempt to produce seven ballets.
We only experience these ‘characters' in their working environments. We learn next-to-nothing about their personal lives, their sacrifices, their experiences outside of the Ballet. In fact, the only character we get to know on even the most superficial level is Brigitte Lefèvre, the troupe's artistic director who - in exchanges with collaborators and students - comes across as a highly guarded, austere professional.
This lack of character development or insight can be tedious and languid in long stretches (and the film - at two-and-a-half hours - is much too long for its relatively small pleasures), but the film effectively observes intriguing behaviour in the artistic process, examining the way in which a group of collaborators refine their technique to achieve physical excellence.
