It is 1913 and ballet dancers are the rock stars of their day. One of the most famous in his area is Nijinski, who has been tasked by his manager Sergei Diaghilev to choreograph a new work for presentation on the stage. The public and the press know little about it except that it is to be a new composition from Stravinsky expectations are high. Behind the scenes though, people are nervous because musically it is totally against all accepted standards of rhythm and, to put it crudely, it sounds like one big noise. Making the show even more of a risky proposition is the fact that Nijinski's choreography is deliberately jerky and opposite to the flowing motion of traditional ballet.
As a previous reviewer has said, this is the sort of film the BBC should be making stuff that other networks don't do because it will never get ratings, which they need to get the advertisers coming in. However worthy this film is though, I must confess that I felt it fell awkwardly between two stools and didn't manage to be detailed enough for an elite audience, or informative enough for appreciation by a wider audience. To make sure you know which camp I fall into, it should be said that I am not a ballet fan (although I will always give dance a look) and knew nothing of this event until I watched this film and did some reading on my own. The problem with the whole film to me was that it didn't help me understand why I should be caring about what I'm watching. This is primarily evident in the failure to convey just how shocking it would have been to the audience of the period. I could see that it was jerky motion and strange music but I didn't "get" the feeling that everyone involved felt they were taking a massive risk.
Likewise, the riot itself is presented in such a way that I could not understand why this event was sufficiently significant to be recreated almost 100 years later. The "riot" is presented as booing and jeering which, I suppose is unusual for a ballet but worthy of historical record? Others have told me that there was much more to it than this but why then did the film not bring this out. I have seen people booing films, walking out of films and (on this site) the critical savaging of anything new is a daily occurrence. Similarly I didn't think the film did well in regards what happened next again, there must have been sufficient ramifications to make it become recorded in history? Don't get me wrong, the film is still interesting and does serve as a capture of the ballet itself but with the film probably already appealing to a small portion of the market, which make it more select by failing to engage those who may not know it all yet? The fault probably lies with Elyot's script but Wilson's direction doesn't help as simply having a few scenes of traditional ballet doesn't suggest that doing the Rite was going to bring the house down. The cast are sturdy enough to do the job but cannot do the job botched by the writer. Garcia is passionate, McArdle is strangely comic, Jennings is OK and Jones' short time on screen made me wonder why he bothered. The dancers are impressive and it may well look ugly and graceless but their ability to control their bodies in this way is still worth seeing.
Overall a strange film that will probably not appeal to that many people not because it is too highbrow but just because it doesn't actually tell the story that well. I now know there was some trouble at a ballet performance in 1913 but I am none the wiser as to the wider impact it had, what happened that night that made it so important or the reasons why it was worth filling 90 minutes of the schedules. Interesting and maybe worth seeing for the recreation of the Right of Spring but somehow it just didn't manage to convey anything else with any context or passion.
