TuTuMuch
(2010/First Run DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: D Documentary: B+
It
is a summer of hopes and dreams for young female dancers to get into
the Royal Winnipeg Ballet summer program in Elise Swerhone's TuTuMuch
(2010). Girls who graduate from that school are able to consider
themselves world class ballet dancers. From ages 11-14 there are
7,000 candidates only 70 make it. It takes skills, talent, passion,
endurance, and the sacrifices to become a professional dancer.
A
ballerina is beautiful and graceful and so is their dance, but the
road to becoming one is hardly the same. Girls with natural talent
first selected and then train from a young age, and even then it
might not be enough. Other traits the teachers look for are natural
body structure, looks, attitude and the willingness to endure pain.
They are often shaped, molded and tested at the school to see if they
are worthy for further time and progression. The school is like a
machine meat grinder and bottleneck for talent, only a few make it
and with each progressing year even fewer make it every following
year, until finally the school ends up with the perfect ballerinas.
This
film gives you a bit of look into how scary the world of dance
competition can be. The story of how young girls, basically molded
into the 'ideal' of perfection and beauty. Underneath the beautiful
tutu is a story of pain, suffering and sacrifices. I don't know
which is worse, how the teachers treat the girls like machines and
then toss out the ones they don't think is good enough, or how the
girls would choose to want something like this. A majority of the
girls ends up with broken dreams and then sent home. I think girls
of the school have great talent, but the school keep the enrollment
numbers low in order to just keep the value of their dancers high.
There
are no extras, but the digitally shot anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X
1 image and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound are nicely recorded for the
format.
-
Ricky Chiang
