Mao's Last Dancer

[flemmings]

Went to see Mao's Last Dancer last night. This means I've seen three films, *in theatres*, in the last year. My dizzy social life, it dizzies me.

(And I nearly left in the first five minutes because one reason I don't watch films in theatres is they're so fricking LOUD. They hurt my ears-- which, unlike everyone else in my generation I must assume, were not damaged in the 60s by rock concerts and thereafter by walkmans and ipods played at maximum volume.)

I liked it very much, aside from being confused because I thought it was a documentary. How else could you get a Chinese actor who also speaks English and can dance? Appears there's more than one around, and Cao Ci is gorgeous. As is the female dancer he briefly partners in China-- who is that?

And of course I wept like a drain at the appropriate moment. But one thing bothered me about that-- two, actually.

Like, if you pull high-level diplomatic strings to bring your dancer's parents to the US, after aaaaalllll these yeeears apaaaart, so they can finally see him dance on stage, and keep it a big hush-hush secret from him and all--

1) wouldn't you provide them with an interpreter, on account of them probably never having been out of their home province even, let alone travelled on a plane to a foreign city?

and

2) of all the western ballets to display their son's dancing in, why pick The Rite of Spring, which even westerners might find foreign and incomprehensible (and loud and ugly) if suddenly dropped into it?

Now I want to read the book and find out what really happened.

Comments

unrelated to film

[bladderwrack.livejournal.com]

I usually block my ears with pellets of rolled-up tissue in cinemas. You can still hear, it just takes off the painful edge. You also can't hear properly anyone in the audience - ymmv on whether this is an advantage or not.

Re: unrelated to film

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Very much an advantage. I do carry earplugs around, for studying purposes, and they only take the edge off the conversations as well.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

completely unrelated ... only just heard about the quake - only on lj though and don't know the seriousness of it but I hope you and yours are all unhurt and that nothing was damaged. Or if so not to a large scale.

*HUGS and Love*

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the concern. Didn't feel a thing, being outside at the time. Would have sneered anyway as I did the last time this happened ohhh about ten years ago?

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't realize that the movie is out already. That dancer in the movie is actually the son of a friend of my mothers. He's actually Canadian, and both he and his sister are trained by Royal Ballet of Ontario, I think. So you might get to see him dance there sometimes. There are actually a whole bunch of Chinese dancers in the west -- my mother organizes a reunion in NY every year for people from her company, and she usually manages to get around 20 people at least. I need to take her to see this movie. I think I talked about this book a while ago, have I? It's really a very good natured book, not at all melodramatic as you might expect.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Yes, you mentioned it, in your reminiscing 'oh yes and we knew him and him and them as well' fashion. ^_^ ('Tactful', I think you called it.) Is why I'd love to see the film with you some time. Cao Chi OTOH has been across the pond in Birmingham for the last ten years and only Xiao Nan Yu is left of the old guard up here.