After seeing Donya Feuer's The Dancer, a ballet performance seems like an amazing disguise. On stage, the dances have such graceful fluidity; the dancers themselves appearing as feminine fragile creatures in delicate costumes--not the sweating, hurting athletes they actually are. Following the training of Katja Borner at the Royal Swedish Ballet School, The Dancer reveals the back-breaking, body-bending, toe-crunching effort involved in ballet and the compulsive perfectionist mindset the dancer must maintain in order to achieve any success. Even those pale-pink toe shoes, so seemingly quaint, are like torture devices the dancer must withstand. At one point, Feuer remarkably contrasts the warm-up exercises of the dancer with the making of ballet shoes, each an intense, almost agonizing labor. Recommended. (L. Russo)
The Dancer
(First Run, 800-229-8575, 96 min., in Swedish w/English subtitles, not rated, avail. May 13) Vol. 12, Issue 3
The Dancer
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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