Etoiles - Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet
by Nils Tavernier
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Aurélie Dupont, Elisabeth Platel, Laurent Hilaire, Manuel Legris, Nicolas Le RicheDirector: Nils Tavernier
Brand: First RUN Features
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, HiFi Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, THX, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-10-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
Movie Reviews of Etoiles - Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet
Movie Review: Edifying and thought-provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
What makes ballet worth the time and effort required of the dancers? What's the payoff? Etoile (star) Claire-Marie Osta says she has a mystical side and considered being a nun but was afraid that would afford insufficient opportunity for physical expression. She needed, in other words, to be a flying nun. The commitment required by ballet closes many other doors, but she never considered those opportunity costs as "sacrifices" because they are repaid a hundredfold. What's it like to move onto the brightly-lighted stage from the dark wings? "C'est magic," she says with a Mona Lisa smile.
Marie-Agnes Gillot is asked if she loves ballet. Love is too weak a word, she answers. Former dancer Ghislaine Thesmar (who now rehearses dancers and is married to choreographer Pierre Lacotte) describes aspiring dancers not as students but "disciples." She admits that the system is a machine that "crushes" the weak (who are, of course, still children). Is it inhumane? Gillot says she "got some whacks" but "turned out OK." Indeed, she loved her time at ballet school. The goal of the elders is to pass on their love of ballet and foster talent. There is no affirmative action for the kinesthetically-challenged, and self-esteem arises only as a byproduct of achievement. Yet Thesmar is manifestly sensitive to the needs of individual dancers-- a fact confirmed by etoile Agnes Letestu, who credits Thesmar for not trying to make her over in Thesmar's image.
Giggles are ubiquitous in this documentary. There's competition, uncertainty, stage fright, and lots of sweat, but these people are having fun. Lower-ranking dancers may spend six weeks of practice for two minutes of performance in "Swan Lake." It's insane, says Thesmar. Yet the most rueful comment corps dancers and understudies make is, "I'm not dancing" (in this production).
Aurelie Dupont also "turned out OK," but is less willing than Gillot to exonerate the system and view its "inhumanity" as the price of excellence. Why pay the price? She describes herself as shy and credits ballet with helping to meet her "need to exist" by providing experiences on stage she would never seek in life. When introduced in social company as an etoile, she says people always go overboard on respect. (I would.) Shakespeare says "The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, though to itself it only live and die." Dupont hears the summer's applause but thinks that, still, she is just a ballerina.
Which brings us to the most interesting "existential" question: can ballet be the meaning of life? Elisabeth Platel, on the occasion of her retirement after a performance of "La Sylphide," ticked off the many rewards of a life in ballet but closed with a rhetorical question: "but is that life?" For all its virtues, is ballet, perhaps, too one-dimensional? Is Osta really a flying nun-- or just a performing seal? (Forgive me, Claire-Marie, but I have to ask that question for the sake of argument.) What I'm hearing from these dancers is that ballet provides an opportunity for spiritual self-transcendence through dedication to a beautiful performing art. Dancing is wholesome. But dancers are just people, perhaps even "sinners" (although it is hard to think of them as sinners while they are dancing). Ballet does not "deliver" the meaning of life but provides what sociologist (and Christian) Peter Berger calls "signals of transcendence" or what C. S. Lewis calls joy-- "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." I think Osta is right to see ballet as a spiritual vocation, and I think Platel is right to see that ballet arouses desires it cannot satisfy. How fitting that Platel's last ballet should be "La Sylphide," which Thesmar describes-- almost as if she were C. S. Lewis-- in terms of the male's longing for the elusive and unattainable feminine ideal. Romantic? Yes-- and very spiritual.
I'm not worried about spoiling the "plot" of the documentary by saying too much. One must see faces and hear voices to fully appreciate it. After viewing it several times, I loaned my copy to a former ballerina who, through no fault of her own, was unable to return it. I ordered a second copy and have also viewed it several times. It's my cult movie. (For me, the subtitles are a non-issue.)
Summary of Etoiles - Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet
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