The Dancer (1994)
Picture: C
Sound: B- Extras: C- Documentary: C+
We have had many films and special interest titles on
dancing, even ballet, and Danya Feuer’s The Dancer (1994) is yet another
chronologically covered exercise in how hard dancers work to perfect their
craft up to the big performance. It is
always impressive and magnificent, which this critic is not saying
mockingly. Instead, it really is often
this powerful, including here, but the predictability always undercuts the
final work here unless you have not seen many of these types of works or could
care less about said predictability.
This one takes place at The Royal Swedish Ballet School
and specifically Katja Bjorner, though the school has many other talents. Director Of Photography, electronic or not,
Gunnar Kallstrom does get in there with the camera(s) and gets the kind of
footage you need to really see what is happening to put this highest form of
classical dance together. It is nice
when it clicks, but as I watched, I wondered how much Robert Altman’s recent The
Company was deconstructing this.
I’ll have more to think about when I get to that one, which was shot in
digital HD.
The 1.66 X 1 image looks like it was shot on video and
then transferred to film, which is fine for a documentary work, looking like
PAL format here, but it has some serious detail limits and the color is a bit
off. On the other hand, the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo has enough Pro Logic surrounds and was a Dolby A-type
theatrical sound release. The only
extra here is trailers for four other such titles from Frist Run on DVD. The Dancer is a quality work, but is
recommended for ballet fans only.
- Nicholas Sheffo
