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Bookmark this pageLa Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009)
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Movie review
From Time Out Online
A dancer, said choreographer Maurice Béjart, must be half nun, half boxer. Possibly the same applies to documentary makers; whether it was grace or pugnacity that won Wiseman his startling access to the Paris Opéra Ballet, something worked. We watch performances and rehearsals, meetings and a fraught interview between the artistic director and a nervous newbie, which ends ominously with a compliment on the latter’s weight loss. There’s no commentary: like a dancer, Wiseman tells by showing. The dancing itself, surprisingly contemporary for such a venerable institution, is breathtaking, but Wiseman doesn’t get carried away: there’s a sombre moment during a meeting about pensions – which start at age 40 for dancers – when the camera pans across this feast of glowing bodies, as if to warn of the toll their art invariably takes.Author: Nina Caplan
Time Out Online London Film Festival 2009
Cast & crew
Director: Frederick Wiseman
Genre(s): Documentaries
Duration: 158 mins
US Release: Nov 6 2009
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