Film festivals often require viewers to blurt out immediate reactions without allowing much time for contemplation before rushing off to the next screening. I had this experience yesterday, when my instincts told me to reach the verdict that a certain movie was "great" before -- upon deeper reflection aided by the insight of a colleague on Twitter -- that it might not deserve the praise.
But it's a tough call. The movie in question, "Only When I Dance," offers a beautiful, immersive look at two teenage ballet dancers from Rio de Janeiro aiming to advance their careers in a fiercely competitive marketplace.
They are both tremendously talented and passionately engaged with the form. Coming from the lower class backgrounds of Brazilian shanty towns, they make ideal characters in the classic rags-to-riches tale.
Director Beadie Finzi competently plays up this angle by showing the dancers' parents as they struggle to pay the bills as their children travel to international showcases in the hopes of breaking out. In breathtakingly gorgeous scenes, dancers soar across the stage, throwing their full determination into the creative process.
However, only one of them makes it to the finish line with a huge career advancement, while the other continues to flounder at the bottom of the profession.
Here's where the movie becomes subtly problematic: The dancer who fails does so in nearly every scene. She hurts her foot. She learns that she's overweight by dancer standards despite all appearances to the contrary. She copes with a hectic schedule. She just can't seem to get a break.
It's no surprise when the poor girl fails to impress the judges at a major event in New York City during the third act. As the story wraps up, she's still stuck in an endless stream of practice sessions while her successful colleague triumphantly pirouettes across a Manhattan rooftop.
Whether intentional or not, the juxtaposition comes across as mean-spirited and somewhat unfair. At a certain point, it might have made sense for Finzi to either drop her less capable subject or find a way to put the story in better context. As it stands, the movie simply condescends the dancer's (sizable) skill by directly comparing it to her colleague's superior abilities.
There's no indication that she shows any promise as a professional ballerina, even though -- to my layman eyes -- she seems pretty good at it. So the movie basically serves as a put-down for fifty percent of the time.
That said, the drama of the competition and the fluidity of the performances both make for a palpably moving experience. It's the underlying message embedded in the structure that could use some work.
In my initial reaction to the movie, I thought it might work well on a double bill with "Racing Dreams," another acclaimed documentary currently screening at Tribeca. The difference is that "Racing Dreams," Marshall Curry's portrait of adolescent Americans competing in the National Championship of the World Karting Association, contains a wide variety of characters.
