"Mao's Last Dancer", A Film
Roadshow Entertainment / ATO Pictures / Samuel Goldwyn Films et al.
Shirlington Cinema, Shirlington Village, Arlington, Virginia
August 21, 2010
by George Jackson
copyright 2010 by George Jackson
The movie version of Li Cunxin's life is more soap opera than his book. As such, though, it works well save for a few scenes that stretch credulity. Some of the choreography and class work, attributed to Ben Stevenson in his days as director of the Houston Ballet, is in a balletomodern style more typical of Australia's Graeme Murphy - who seems to have been the movie's principal dance consultant.
Murphy has over the years made dramatically effective stage works. He's been called the Aussie version of Britain's Matthew Bourne although it ought to be the other way round, Murphy being a decade older. For this Australian movie directed by Bruce Beresford, Murphy contributes three horrors - sections from a modernized "Swan Lake", from a "Rite of Spring" that goes up in flames and from a company class Stevenson wouldn't have dreamed of - even in a nightmare. There is also a duet involving ballet barres that does in its emotional academicism resemble an actual Stevenson opus. Moreover, the military passages from a revolutionary Chinese ballet give a fairly authentic notion of what met Mme. Mao's approval.
Chi Cao as Li Cunxin acts credibly and dances well. He's more streamlined than I remember Cunxin being. I liked Amanda Schull as the failed dancer who becomes Cunxin's first wife and turns out to be a failed homemaker. Bruce Greenwood's tempered whims as Ben Stevenson hit the mark between imitation and extrapolation. The background characters often manage to be both instantly recognizable types and yet have individual touches.
