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(Mild spoiler) I was lured into 'Strictly Ballroom' by an 'indie-phile' friend of mine, and I was certain it was going to be one long boring Ingmar Bergman film of crane shots, brimming with double meaning and intellectual purpose. But the film opens documentary-style, with ballroom queen Pat Thompson so distraught over son Paul Mercurio's improvisational dance steps she actually breaks down in sobs saying, "I keep asking myself why? Where did I go wrong as a mother?!!" I've never laughed so hard five minutes into a movie in my life. From that moment on the film is a marvelous, over-the-top tribute to the business of professional ballroom dancing (a form of entertainment I admit I was only aware of from the annual PBS specials hosted by Ron Montez and the late Juliet Prowse). But director Baz Luhrmann (whom I think went a bit too MTV for the film 'Moulin Rouge') gets the balance of comedy and Hollywood musical spoof just right here. The film goes from mock-docudrama to a charming, hotheaded-boy-meets-shy-awkward-girl story flawlessly, and even though there are cliches' throughout the film (awkward girl is ostracized by society for no apparent reason; all accomplished dancers seem to be sprayed with a layer of tanning lacquer and gunite), the film nips each one of them in the bud quickly, and you end up not minding the swan-like transformation of leading lady Tara Morice (you can see it coming in the rehearsal sequence when she first displays a leotard and skirt; the hair comes down, and the glasses come off). She is uniquely beautiful. The dancing is marvelous, especially the final flamenco which seems to be channeling both Jose Greco and Bob Fosse.
score /10
movibuf1962 7 January 2004
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0313676/ |
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2-12-2019 05:25:46
