Ulyana Lopatkina in Ballerina, a film by Bertrand Norman.
In an early scene from Bertrand Normand’s documentary Ballerina, 10-year-old girls await their entrance examination for the Kirov Ballet’s Vaganova Academy in their underwear. A tiny candidate is brought before the judges, where an examiner bends and twists and prods her in stony silence, like a specimen at a dog show.
The students who get in must be thin and supple, with a freakishly high degree of rotation in the hip sockets, long necks, small heads, and pliant backs. But what Ballerina proves so compellingly is that physical attributes are only the beginning of what make a fully artistic dancer. A great Kirov ballerina is a woman of tremendous will, creativity, intelligence, and psychological strength.
Ballerina is probably the most raw and unglamorized portrayal of the dancer’s life I’ve yet seen. At a rehearsal, 19-year-old Evgenia Obraztsova finishes a variation and collapses over the barre, hardly able to stand; when her coach says that she looks tired, she apologizes that “it’s harder in the morning” and pledges to try again. Later, preparing for her debut as Odette in Swan Lake, she is picked to bits by three of the Maryinsky Theater’s top administrators; she listens without complaint and simply tries to do what she is asked, even when the instructions are unclear. When her performance is a smash success and the Maryinsky Theater director tells her to take the next day off, Obrazstova looks about to cry, we think from relief. But then, looking nearly panicked, she says she wouldn’t know what to do if she didn’t come to company class.
Ballerina shows us five Kirov dancers. Svetlana Zakharova is revealed not as a diva, but a sweet, shy, overworked girl. Diana Vishneva is shown rehearsing for an appearance with the Paris Opera Ballet and admitting, “I often feel like giving up.” Ulyana Lopatkina is attempting her return to the stage after foot surgery, and two years off to have a child. The coltish Alina Somova has just entered the company and is rising fast.
But the lion’s share of camera time goes to Obraztsova, who appears ever more endearing and heroic. After her debut in Romeo and Juliet, she meets a clutch of tearful fans in the halls, clearly touched by what her performance has meant to them. It’s a cult of beauty, one that Obraztsova seems to sacrifice herself to not out of ego, but sheer generosity.
Given Normand’s exceptional access and his refreshingly realistic understanding of these women’s lives, it’s a shame Ballerina doesn’t have higher production qualities. The lighting is often poor, especially in the performance footage, and the sound quality is bad. A stiff voice-over imparts oddly edited historical context and some obvious observations (backstage is “a dizzying maze of corridors and theater wings!”) The movie would be better without.
But his sensitive, respectful portrayal of these women is both fascinating and inspiring. For the great ballerinas of the Kirov, the reality of their daily dedication is far stranger than any glamorous mythologizing.
