«Polina, dancing your life away»2 reading minutes

Cinema Wednesdays - Loris S. Musumeci

«What does dancing mean to you?
- Ça comes by itself.»

To the rhythm of music and hot blood in singularity, Polina, dancing your life away tells the timeless, banal story of a Russian ballerina in the post-communist 1990s.

Polina's body is slender, her movement graceful, and her dancing «comes all by itself». His modest parents made many sacrifices to enroll him in the demanding Bojinski's classes, with the aim of one day becoming the star of the symbol of Russian pride: the Bolshoi Theatre.

The little girl grows up, her figure becomes more strongly delicate and her eyes and lips more sensual. After several hard and firm years with the master, it's time to audition to enter the Bolshoi dream. Polina passes the audition with flying colors, but at the tender age of eighteen, she falls in love with a charming French dancer passing through Moscow. To her mother's bitter disappointment, the little star decides to fly to Aix-en-Provence with her soulmate.

What were supposed to be surprises turn into disappointments. The young protagonist rebels; she wants to live and feel desire in her body, without constantly copying the model of some choreographic authority. Live her dance and dance her life. This is Polina's quest through her tortuous adventures. In truth, she wants to participate in the creation of art by learning to «looking at the world».

Based on the Bastien Vivès comic strip, Polina, With this cinematic ballet, filmmaker Valérie Müller and her choreographer husband Angelin Preljocaj offer a complete, simple and captivating work.

Dance is implicitly or explicitly present in every part of the film. It is not, however, filmed dance. Polina, dancing your life away, as the title itself suggests, offers the psychological and physical discovery of an artist, in the normal course of a teenager educated in the rigors of the right step and elegance. With these few elements alone, the viewer enjoys a profound richness on screen.

The images projected are overwhelming: snow-covered Russia, the face of the sublime Anastasia Shevtsova, interpreter of the adult Polina, the determined tenderness of the noble gesture, the spellbinding bodies of the dancers in motion. This painting suggests an interesting connection with Pina, the biography of Pina Bausch, in a version stripped of its documentary dimension.

Currently in cinemas, the film is not receiving good reviews from the general public. It is considered dull. Nonetheless, those with a more pronounced taste for cinema, which here presents itself more as a work of art than as an opportunity for entertainment, will find themselves enthralled by this story of rediscovered desire, of absence to be filled, and of determination to become oneself through the beauty of dance. A dance of existence.

«All my choreography is about what it's like to be without the person you want.»

Write to the author : loris.musumeci@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: AlloCiné