[yasr_overall_rating]
A young girl studies classical ballet. As a young woman, she turns to modern dance and choreography.
What haunts Polina, the titular character in Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj’s behind-the-scenes look at ballet/character study? The film never really answers that question. It’s on the knife’s edge of wisdom, but never quite reaches true depth.
Sure, there’s Polina’s shady father, making deals with some hoodlums and embarking on an unexplained trip to Afghanistan. And yes, our hero comes from an impoverished background, living in Moscow’s “factory ghetto.” But really, her life isn’t so bad.
Her family sits around the table, singing songs. Despite not being able to afford ballet classes, she inexplicably still enrolls, for years. Somewhat dispassionately determined, taunted by her strict teacher (the wonderful Aleksey Guskov), Polina boldly turns down a great opportunity at Moscow’s world-famous Bolshoi Theater. French boyfriend in tow, she embarks on a trip to Southern France, leaving her grief-stricken mother behind.
After encountering enigmatic ballet instructor Liria Elsaj (the wonderful Juliette Binoche), Polina runs off from another incredible opportunity to a small town in Belgium. Homeless at first (she sleeps at a laundromat), she then becomes a bartender and soon finds her true self – I guess – in modern dance.
The fragmented, episodic structure lets the film down, hopping between crucial scenes of Polina’s development. What drove her to so abruptly leave Bolshoi theater behind, or Liria? I get that she’s on a quest to “find herself,” but that’s me tacking on that theme forcefully – her character’s vague motivations become irritating. The protagonist is kept at a stretched leg’s length; the film runs itself into a corner in its tedious second half.
Anastasia Shevtsova’s “scaled-back to vacuum” performance doesn’t really help matters: while certainly a pro when it comes to dancing, the real-life ballerina happens to be a blank slate when it comes to acting. A good actor makes a hard-to-read character compelling (for two random examples, see Forest Whitaker in “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” and Garance Marillier in the recent “Raw”). Deeply affected by her teacher’s insistence on feeling emotions, her character remains emotionless throughout the film.
“Polina” is your typical underdog story of a girl fighting against impossible odds to find herself, disguised as a somber, naturalistic Indie Drama. The Dardenne brothers this ain’t, though Valérie Müller adopts a similar approach: a relentless focus on its main, lower-middle-class protagonist, a slow build-up to a soul-cleansing conclusion… and next-to-no humor. The Belgian brothers make it work. Müller valiantly tries, but doesn’t quite get there, her film too dour to please “Step Up” fans and too shallow to satisfy connoisseurs of, say, Robert Altman (“The Company”) or Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”).
“Polina” briefly kicks into high gear when stalwart Binoche steps into the picture, her character’s fusions of techno and contemporary dance propelling the narrative for a while. “It’s too pretty,” Liria yells at Polina, “I’m looking for something real.” She may as well be talking about Müller and Preljocaj’s movie.
I’m being extra harsh on “Polina” because when it gets things rights, it’s aces. It contains gorgeous music and astounding ballet sequences (props to Angelin Preijocaj, who co-directed the film with Valérie Müller). It especially comes alive when Polina dances in grimy surroundings to drone-like dance beats. Case in point: one of the film’s opening scenes, where a young Polina (Veronica Zhovnytska) performs joyous pirouettes against the gloomy backdrop of filthy snow and steaming factories.
Which makes it all the more disappointing that I walked out of the theater feeling “meh”. What haunts Polina? The lack of script rewrites, apparently.
In select theaters Friday, September 1st
