Why did world-famous Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defect? That’s the question I found myself Googling immediately after seeing Ralph Fiennes’ lovely, elegant, and curiously opaque “The White Crow,” an impressive, dance-heavy biopic which focuses on Nureyev’s childhood, training, and life-changing visit to Paris as part of the Kirov Ballet, culminating in his decision to seek asylum in France. For all its pleasures — among them generous helpings of dance and a true-life East-meets-West intrigue to rival fictive Cannes favorite “Cold War” — the film remains maddeningly ambiguous about his motives for cutting ties with the Soviet Union.
Of course, some things we can never know, although in this case, it feels like more of a creative choice than a historical one, leaving culture-savvy art-house audiences something to ponder after a classy — and respectfully sexy — night at the movies. Such crowds are presumably familiar with the reputation Nureyev made for himself over the subsequent decades,...
Of course, some things we can never know, although in this case, it feels like more of a creative choice than a historical one, leaving culture-savvy art-house audiences something to ponder after a classy — and respectfully sexy — night at the movies. Such crowds are presumably familiar with the reputation Nureyev made for himself over the subsequent decades,...
- 9/4/2018
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
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