Strictly Ballroom
Strictly Ballroom on DVD |
One beneficial consequence of
the flood of publicity attending the DVD release of Moulin Rouge turns out to be
the availability of director Baz Luhrmann's decade-old debut, Strictly Ballroom.
Billed as a 10th Anniversary Edition and marketed as part of "the Red Curtain
trilogy" (along with Moulin Rouge and 1996's William Shakespeare's Romeo +
Juliet), which cloaks all three films in MR's red-velvet drapery, the DVD
reissue is a pure delight.
Strictly Ballroom began life as an
improvised play based loosely on Luhrmann's boyhood experiences in the realm of
competitive ballroom dancing, and it has a sort of rapturous theatricality that one
usually only finds on the stage. The cast is relaxed and loose and the director, obviously
intoxicated by color and motion, keeps the camera moving, swooping through and around the
action, stopping only to zoom-in tight on characters' faces as they directly address the
audience.
The 94-minute film unfolds at a breakneck pace. It starts
as a psuedo-documentary. The characters are up in arms over a horrific breach in protocol
that has rocked the world of Australian competitive ballroom dancing: Scott Hastings has
dared to create new steps. And, if there's one thing the entire hierarchy of the sport
agrees upon, it is that there are no new steps.
Scott's dancing partner can't deal with the shame of it all
and she quits the duo. Now Scott, who everyone agrees is ready for "his" year,
has only three weeks before the Asian Pan Pacific competition in which to find and
break-in a new partner.
Although his parents and the local dance community
encourage him to audition experienced dancers for the position, Scott becomes intrigued by
Fran (Tara Morice) -- a perpetual student at his mother's dance academy. The problem is
she's never danced competitively -- in fact, she's never even danced with a male partner
and compared to the hothouse flowers of the dance community, she's decidedly unglamorous,
even clumsy.
When the film was released, at least one reviewer called it
"Rocky on the dance floor" and that does capture a bit of the film's
populist rooting-for-the-underdog feel-good vibe. But Rocky was a relatively
un-nuanced story, where Strictly Ballroom slyly undermines the seriousness with
which these characters obsess over events they consider earth shattering and that the
audience can barely take seriously. It's as though Rocky simultaneously gave a
sympathetically detailed description of the world of prize fighting while affectionately
mocking it -- even questioning it.
With the exception of the lead, Paul Mercurio, and Antonio
Vargas as Rico, Fran's father, Luhrmann cast actors rather than dancers. You'd never guess
it though -- Mercurio and Vargas are undeniably actors and the rest of the cast is
thoroughly convincing (at least to a non-dancer such as myself) as ballroom virtuosos.
In a film about the world of competitive ballroom dancing,
the dancing must be convincing, of course, but it is the acting that has to win the
audience over -- and, in Strictly Ballroom, it does. Mercurio, whose rugged good
looks and electric self-assurance seduce the camera, shows a surprisingly gentle side in
portraying Scott. Scott, who has obviously won the genetic lottery, has the cocky
self-assurance of someone who has been told he was special from birth, and he can assume
the hauteur of the habitual winner -- as he does when he tells Fran how absurd her dream
of dancing with him is. But Mercurio also captures the struggle of a young,
untested man to do the right thing, as well as the sheer joy of the trained athlete doing
what he does best. It’s a star turn and a damned good'un.
Tara Morice's Fran is the ugly duckling that becomes a swan
through the power of dance. Personally, I felt the film went too far in showing her as the
clumsy, unglamorous mouse she was before beginning her dance lessons with Scott. She's a
terrific actress and she shows Fran's transformation into a confident and beautiful
partner strictly through craft -- she didn't need the extra help.
But it's hard to see an easy answer to that problem --
Luhrmann paints all of his characters with extremely broad strokes and telling details.
Toning down Fran's extremes would have been at odds with that aspect of his narrative
style, but it still strikes the rare false note in an otherwise hard-to-fault storyline.
Among the other cast members, I particularly enjoyed Barry
Otto, as Doug's father -- a mild man with a tragic secret -- and the young actress Lauren
Hewitt as Hastings' little sister, who, operating as a Greek chorus of sorts, delivers
some of the film's funniest lines.
But as good as the cast is, it is Luhrmann's show. He
sweeps the audience up in a headlong rush of narrative fervor and he never lets the story
lag. He's in love with motion -- intoxicated with dance; the camera itself never stands
still. We swoop and swirl and rush through the dressing rooms and corridors of
competition, assailed by the colors and costumes and, always, rhythms of Strictly
Ballroom's mise en scéne. It's not a naturalistic storytelling style, but it
mirrors the forced exuberance and heightened drama of its world, and it works -- as much
as anything -- through its total lack of doubt in itself.
The 10th Anniversary DVD features a sharp, great-sounding
transfer. As eye candy, it's a winner. It's filled with bright colors and deep contrasts,
and between the deep saturation of its palette and the camera's unceasing movement,
there's always something rich happening on screen. The soundtrack is labeled Dolby Digital
5.1, but the film doesn't really use the surrounds -- everything's focused in the front
channels. The sound is impressive, however, and the many scenes of public dancing give the
subs something to work with, in terms of both bass and ambience retrieval.
You also get the now-standard audio commentaries, which are
an enjoyable dividend, an Easter egg of deleted scenes, a "scrapbook" of the
production, a featurette on dancing and a music video ("Love is in the Air").
All the extras are pleasant and welcome enough, but the
draw here is the film -- after a five-year wait, we finally get the DVD transfer the film
deserves. If you've seen it, you know what a treat Strictly Ballroom is, and you'll
want to snap it up for those times you could use a tonic against melancholy. And if you
haven't, don't deprive yourself of one of the minor treasures of modern filmmaking. Strictly
Ballroom is a winner.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
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