Fresh and Exciting

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Only in France will you have ballerinas who smoke. I came to this after — and because — of a similar dance documentary made similarly for French TeeVee but of classical Russian ballet corps. This group mixes modern and classical. They are French in the old sense of balancing passion with institutionalized grace. These dancers could have been the stuff of a truly remarkable film. We simply needed more of them, more of them in motion and fewer words.Making a film is a collaboration, a recipe from many larders. Here you have the performers are real performers seen mostly when not in their performance but the filmmaker's. This is rare. They are inherently full of focused life made physical made visible made accessible. We have a camera operator who is really quite in tune with what is going on. The eye moves, the camera is mobile. It has more than curiosity; it has composition out of minor discoveries; patterns not intended. I liked the camera. The editor understood this and — while not as inspired — accommodated the feel. It is offputting at first, then helps you find the groove.The thing that destroys this is the director himself. He apparently did not understand what all the creative people around him were doing, so made some obviously bad decisions on what he decided to shoot and include. The overall shape of the thing is a mess. It moves from a backstage exploration to group biographies, to actually photographing some fantastic dance.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Beautifully shot, beautifully edited, a gem of a documentary. This should be required viewing for parents who want their little darlings to be dancers.The Paris Opera Ballet operates under the auspices of the French government, who help fund the company and the school that trains dancers from the age of 8 until they are ready to enter the company (IF they are ready to enter the company). The level of technical command is impressive, even in the school segments. Most frightening amongst the injuries, exhaustion and prospect of a short career, is the dancers bodies, especially the women. Even for Parisians, most of the dancers are scarily thin. (and yes, I know dancers and work with dancers. We're talking below 10 percent body fat.)

Etoiles: Dancers Of The Paris Opera (2001): Starring Brigitte LeFevre, Jiri Kylian, Claude Bessy, Maurice Bejart, Aurelie Dupont, Laurent Hilaire, Manuel Legris, Nicolas LeRiche, Jose Martinez, Elisabeth Platel, Marie Agnes Gillot, Clairemarie Osta, Celine Talon, Nathalie Rique, Miteki Kudo...Director Nils Tavernier This document was a smash hit in Europe and was a triumph in foreign document, art-house theaters. It follows the process of casting, training, rehearsals and production of ballet performances in the Paris Opera ballet, which has a long history of terrific ballets and an excellent school, dating as far back as the 18th-19th centuries. The top dancer right now is Aurelie Dupont, and we do get to see her shine on the stage as the etoile, the highest rank, but we also see what life is like for the lower-rank dancers. They respond the interviewers' questions with honesty, casualness and still have the glow of youth and happiness on their faces. Dancing is a living passion, but is also as demanding and rigorous as any sports profession like football. This is evident as we see how much these dancers train, sweat and compete against one another to make it to the top. Although we don't see any dark sides to this competitive art world, we do see how it can isolate the youth from a social life, even alienating them from one another. The ballet is a beautiful world, and an art form that combines music, art and dance, but these dancers pay a price to make it big. There is no morals or investigative reporting here. Simply a candid look into the world of ballet. From Brigitte LeFevre, the Director, we learn much about how the dancers take difficult exams (sort of like Ballet American Idols) and are judged fit or unfit to move on to a position in the company. The lowest ranks are the quadrilles and other members of the corps de ballet, the second highest is premiere danseurs and the highest are the etoiles, the French word for "stars". This is how it's always been since the time Charles Garnier's Paris Opera house was established. The documentary is well-made. The Paris Opera's wings and rehearsal rooms are full of activity such as I would never have expected to see. These are true athletes, ready for anything but doing what they love only for a short time in their young lives.

The general message of this video is that it's extremely difficult and physically demanding to be a dancer. This is an idea that was probably absorbed by the dance public quite a while ago and I, for one, am not anxious to hear it again. And yet, this video drums it into our heads repeatedly while showing the brutality of the "Etoile" (star) survival-of-the-fittest system.I also fail to see why so much is made of Bejart's work. And especially since the "Ninth Symphony", admittedly not a ballet but more of a "circus" in my opinion, is set to Beethoven's music. For some reason, Beethoven, for all his greatness, seems to be one of the least danceable composers to ever be choreographed. Maybe his actual ballet music like "The Creatures of Prometheus" might be done more successfully.To me, the Kylian section is more interesting.I found this video to be quite tedious despite some passing pleasures along the way. No doubt it would be of greater interest to dancers and ballet fans.