Dance with Me

‘We’re doing time, quality time!’ remonstrates Alice (Johanne Murdock), the frustrated wife of preoccupied, over-analytical  commercial lawyer Neil (Adam Napier) as the two fight their way through a holiday in an idyllic Fenland villa in writer-director-cinematographer Sasha C Damjanovski’s competently acted but bemusing and frustrating micro-budget debut. At first, Neil seems nearer the verge of a nervous breakdown, but as the dancing couple swaying to MOR Latin beats are revealed as mere figments of Alice’s escapist imagination, it becomes clear that it takes two to tango in this dysfunctional relationship. With its still, crystalline landscape photography and sub-Pinteresque speech rhythms, ‘Dance with Me’ has the look and feel of a Latin-American art movie (albeit, a poor one) and the threatening aura of a piece of experimental Theatre of Cruelty (a pretentious one), while ‘grand metaphor’ hangs over it like a cloud of unknowing. It’s possible the director is attempting a crude equation between dance and sex, but the reason why is anybody’s guess.