Rudolf
Nureyev brought ballet to new heights of popularity when he danced with the
Royal Ballet in London and he took The
Muppet Show to new levels of prestige when he danced with Miss Piggy. Yet,
these career highlights were made possible by the most dramatic episode of his
life: his defection from the Soviet Union. Nureyev’s fateful goodwill tour of France
with the Kirov Ballet is the focus of Ralph Fiennes terrific The White Crow, which opens this Friday
in New York.
Nureyev
was born on a Transiberian train car, far away from the Kirov (a.k.a. Mariinsky)
ballet in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Despite the bad timing of being born
during WWII, Nureyev’s raw talent and drive would eventually take him to the
Vaganova Academy in Leningrad, where ballet master Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin
would take him under his wing, as the audiences sees in flashbacks. (Mikhail
Baryshnikov would later study under Pushkin as well).
By
the time Nureyev reached Paris, he already had a reputation for being the most
electrifying dancer of his generation—and for being difficult for his minders
to control. Despite attempts to shield him Parisian society, Nureyev quickly
befriended French dancer Pierre Lacotte and Chilean expat Clara Saint, the
former fiancée of French Culture Minister Andre Malraux’s late son, with whom
he enthusiastically partook of Paris’s nightclubs, parties, and after-hours
scene. For a while, Strizhevsky, the KGB agent assigned to the Kirov tour,
gives Nureyev some slack, but eventually, the liberties he takes become to much
for the apparatchik to bear.
However,
when Strizhevsky tries to pull him from the tour in the Paris airport, Nureyev
immediately senses something is wrong. Refusing to return to Moscow, a conflict
of wills ensues, overseen by the quick-thinking gendarmes assigned to the airport,
with Saint operating behind the scenes as a liaison to the press and the French
government.
The White Crow (a Russian
expression meaning something like “a rare bird” and “an odd duck”) is a little
over two-hours long, but it feels like it runs less than ninety minutes,
because the climatic airport defection scene is so tightly and tensely helmed
by Fiennes. This is easily his best film as a director (even though his Coriolanus was also quite good), because
his has such a strong aptitude both for the Cold War thriller elements and the
dance sequences.
Fiennes
gives himself an important assist with his achingly conflicted and humanistic
portrayal of Pushkin. Of course, the critical casting coup was real-life
Ukrainian-born ballet dancer Oleg Ivenko, who looks and moves like Nureyev
(which is saying a lot). He projects the magnetism that had such a potent
effect on Nureyev’s admirers, but it is far from a hagiographic portrayal. In
fact, he also quite vividly conveys the dancer’s ambition and diva-like
arrogance.
Aleksey
Morozov is almost as compelling as Strizhevsky, whose desperation to keep
Nureyev in the fold and in his shackles is intensely palpable. Adele
Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color)
is rather a dreary, whiny presence throughout the first hour of the film, yet
somehow, she snaps to during the crucial airport standoff. The ensemble is
impressive, both in their dramatic roles and when applicable, as dancers. Plus,
the period production is seamlessly crafted (it is easy to see why it would be
hard to keep someone in the Worker’s Paradise, after seeing Paris in the early
1960s).
Nureyev,
along with Baryshnikov and Alexander Godunov, established freedom-seeking Soviet
ballet dancers were some of the gutsiest, most principled artists during the
Cold War. Indeed, it is worth noting Sergei Polunin’s engaging performance as Nureyev’s
friend and troupe-mate, Yuri Soloviev, who refused to join the Communist Party,
even after Nureyev’s defection, despite the thuggish pressure exerted by the
KGB. Fiennes nicely captures the tenor of the times and the passion of Nureyev’s
dancing, making it a worthy companion film to Bruce Beresford’s criminally
under-appreciated Mao’s Last Dancer. Very
highly recommended, The White Crow opens
this Friday (4/26) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center.