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| French indie music star and actress Soko stars in The Dancer. (above and below)  |
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| The biopic--which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and was first seen in New York at Lincoln Center Film Society's Rendez-Vous with French Film Festival this past March-- receives its US theatrical release on December 1. |
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| Lily-Rose Depp as a rivalous Isadora Duncan |
directed by Stéphanie Di Giusto
(108 min/France/French with English subtitles)
With her first feature film, The Dancer, director Stéphanie Di Giusto helps us imagine what it must have felt like to see American fin-de-siècle phenom Loïe Fuller (1862-1928) mounting a stage, aswirl in billowing silk and saturating spotlights, a theatrical innovator of monumental spectacle. For her stubborn if put-upon Loïe, Di Giusto deploys the fascinating French indie singer/actress Soko--an early Malcolm MacDowell or Marc Bolan lookalike whose favored black bowler hat might also have you flashing back to Liza Minnelli (Cabaret) and Lena Olin (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) but just briefly. She's far more androgynous than that--one character euphemistically describes her to an ardent male admirer as "standoffish"--and her struggles around sexuality underlie what the director clearly sees as inability to cope with the heedless, cruel pace of a world about to race past her.
Our first sight of Soko shows her nearly smothered in yards of fabric. But, no, she's not performing her famous Serpentine Dance. Instead, she's being rushed by several running men from the stage to either a hotel room or a hospital room; I could not tell which. Although we later learn why, it's enough, in that first moment, to identify Loïe with calamity and vulnerability. The film rarely lets up from that initial impression of her.
Next, we flash back to her as a sturdily-built, gloomy Midwestern girl--a very emo Mary Louise Fuller--sharing rough beginnings with her French-born, alcoholic father. He quickly ends up dead, leaving her at the mercy of a religion-obsessed mother. The cinematography of these early scenes has a heavy, depressing murkiness that rarely lifts from the film even when it is actually better lit. A biopic about an artist who illuminated stages with eye-popping light and magic is taken up with an atmosphere of grim darkness. But, again, Di Giusto seems intent on showing Loïe in pain, insecurity and discouragement.
There's the brutal physical pain of maneuvering those yards and yards of fabric, a feat that leaves her gasping for breath. Despite diligent conditioning, Loïe's body breaks down, time and again, and performing at all becomes a risk. But there's also emotional pain throughout Di Giusto's story--from the loss of Fuller's father to the ultimate betrayal wrought by one Isadora Duncan (Lily-Rose Depp), a youngster more conventionally feminine, at once more graceful and choreographically adventurous in movement and more given to displaying her body before the male gaze.
Mélanie Thierry does fine, delicately nuanced work as Gabrielle Bloch, Fuller's compassionate champion at the Paris Opera. She gives their scenes life and reminds you of Fuller even when the dancer is elsewhere, because you feel how vividly present Fuller is in her thoughts.
Don't come looking for a documentary. As the film opens, we're told that it is "based on a true story." Bear that "based on" in mind, if you will, and grant Di Giusto a little running room with her creative narrative. I suppose an educational film about how the real-life Loïe Fuller first dreamt up the notion of turning silk costuming into both motile sculpture and extraordinary canvases for her unique lighting effects might satisfy some but not many. Actually, we don't get to learn a whole lot more about Isadora Duncan, significant pioneer in her own right, and Depp brings little of interest to her role.
I've long been drawn to both of these legendary artists. I really only perked up when Soko--well-trained by contemporary dance artist Jody Sperling, acclaimed Loïe Fuller specialist and choreographer for the film--dons her costumes and models the sort of transformational stagecraft for which Fuller became famous.
The Dancer opens in theaters Friday, December 1.
Also coming soon...
Gurumbé: Afro-Andalusian Memories
directed by Miguel Ángel Rosales
film screening and flamenco performance
Sunday, December 3, 7pm to 9:30pm
Gurumbé: Afro-Andalusian Memories, a feature-length documentary from anthropologist Miguel Ángel Rosales, explores the contribution of Afro-Andalusians to flamenco as the art form developed. Gurumbé (72 min, in Spanish with English subtitles) has won numerous awards in the festival circuit and it is currently premiering around the world.Flamenco performance by dancer Yinka Ese Graves and live musicians
Roundtable with the performers and the director, moderated by
K. Meira Goldberg, author of Flamenco on the Global Stage and Sonidos Negros: On the Blackness of Flamenco (forthcoming, Oxford University Press)
TICKETS
La Nacional
239 West 14th Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)
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