Mao’s Last Dancer

Posted on May 7, 2011 at 5:45 pm

Director Bruce Beresford, best known for “Driving Miss Daisy,” returns to the themes of cross-cultural connections in this film based on the memoir of Chinese ballet star Li Cunxin.

Li (Chinese surnames appear first) was taken from his poor, rural family at age 11 to study ballet. Madame Mao had declared the arts to be a priority and officials were sent to the furthest reaches of the country to find children who could be trained. Li succeeds more through determination than passion or natural ability, and despite Madame Mao’s insistence on ballet performances based more on political messages than on art. His family (with the radiant Joan Chen as his mother) is very proud of his contribution to China.In 1979, in the early, fragile days of US-China diplomatic relations, Li is sent to spend some time as a guest trainee with the Houston ballet, led by Ben Stevenson (the always-superb Bruce Greenwood).

His English is poor. His understanding of anything other than what he has been told by the Chinese authorities is non-existent. The Americans’ ability to understand him is not much better. But there is the common language of dance. And there Li is so dazzling he is quickly given an opportunity to perform in a key role on stage. The audience loves him.Li does not want to go home. He becomes romantically involved with a tender-hearted young dancer. He appreciates the opportunity to perform without regard to the political content of the ballet. He consults a lawyer (a crafty Kyle MacLachlan). He takes a very big risk for himself and also for those who have befriended him.The film feels episodic and oddly understated and remote. That may be in part because the key role of Li is divided between three actors, Wen Bin Huang as a child, Chengwu Guo as a teenager, and Chi Cao as an adult. Or, it may be because Li the character is reserved by nature and training and something of a cipher. But like its title character, the movie comes alive in the ballet performances, which are well-staged and convey not only the creative energy of their own story-telling but the ultimate expression of the performers’ passion for their art.
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The Black Swan

Posted on March 29, 2011 at 8:00 am

Ballet is more than a profession or even an art form; it is a calling, almost a cult, that demands the ultimate commitment. Ballerinas give everything they have. Director Darren Aronofsky, always drawn to stories about obsession, now takes us inside the mind of a woman who is becoming unraveled.

Ballet is about art but also about discipline and control. It tests every muscle in the body and every bit of resolve of the spirit. Natalie Portman plays Nina (the very name evoking a sort of uncertain syllabic wobble), the daughter of a failed ballet dancer (Barbara Hershey) who has focused on Nina as her second chance to realize her dreams of stardom. Nina is a child-like adult, completely sheltered by her mother and her nun-like commitment to dance.

She wants more than anything to have the lead role in that most revered of ballets, Swan Lake. It is really two lead roles — the story is about a princess who is turned into a white swan. Her chance for breaking the enchantment is lost when the prince is seduced by her nemesis, the black swan. The director (a faun-like Vincent Cassel) tells her he is certain she can perform the part of the white swan with technical perfection. But he is not sure she has the passion, the sensuousness, the willingness to take risks to play the black swan. As she struggles to both maintain and lose control, the world around her distorts. Her mother’s art studio is filled with dozens of portraits of Nina, and their eyes move as she walks by. Nina keeps catching glimpses of herself in mirrors and reflective surfaces. The company’s newest dancer is Lily (Mila Kunis), her name another wobble on the tongue. Is she a friend, a rival, to be feared, hated, desired, overcome? Is she just another of Nina’s reflections?

Visual and narrative symbols of duality and doppelgangers are everywhere, with black, white, gray, and toe shoe pink as the movie’s palette. The script is heavy-handed at times, especially in the scenes with Nina’s mother. But Aronofsky draws us into Nina’s struggles with reality until, like her, we are never sure whether we can trust our eyes. Portman, who studied ballet for a year and did most of the dance moves herself, is superb her struggle to stay in control showing in every muscle, her yearning to break free fighting with her need for approval. Cassel’s louche manipulator, Kunis’ confident rival, and Winona Ryder’s brittle rage as the fading prima ballerina whose role (and lipstick) Nina covets are all exceptional and like Nina herself we experience the performance of the ballet itself as both tragedy and triumph.

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