Film Opéra.
La Danse immerses its audience in the backstage world of the Paris Opera Ballet, offering a glimpse into the logistical and economic machinery that keeps it running. Dancers, choreographers, and ballet masters are men and women who inhabit a space where grace and power intertwine and merge. A single demand guides their commitment and precision: to continuously discover and rediscover the most beautiful things a body can do.
« As when he examined the backstage world of the Comédie-Française in 1996, or a psychiatric hospital for criminals in Titicut Follies forty years ago, the American documentary filmmaker moves—without commentary or interviews—from attics to basements, from the cafeteria to the costume workshop, from a discussion with a choreographer to a logistical meeting with administrators. As is often the case, he manages to capture striking moments, such as a meeting about the gifts to be offered to the “25,000” — the nickname for patrons donating $25,000. And he pays a moving tribute to the ephemeral beauty of dance and to the impossible quest for perfection. »
Télérama
« La Danse, the Ballet of the Paris Opera is exceptional insofar as it resists the reductive label attached to its creator. Wiseman is not merely a sociological filmmaker obsessed with the mechanisms of micro- societies. The distance he maintains from his subjects is not that of a scientist devoid of sentiment. On the contrary, his view of dance is that of a silent lover. This film is the most pictorial—and probably the most painfully intimate—of his entire work. » Lætitia Mikles (Positif)
Lætitia Mikles (Positif)
For additions/changes of information, please contact steven.decarvalho78@gmail.com
