Considered by many to be the world's greatest ever male ballet dancer, and certainly the most celebrated, I was looking forward greatly to watching this documentary film about his life. I knew of his public image and of his defection from the then USSR to The West, and have seen numerous televised recordings of his dancing over the years. What I didn't know was much, if anything at all, about the private Nureyev, and what drove him to become the great dancer and star that he undoubtedly was.
I was therefore rather disappointed with this film. It hardly even scratched the surface of his life at all, and instead focused far more on hard facts and dates, showing archive footage of him through the years. There were some scenes of a more intimate and private Nureyev, but these seemed to be very much second or even third hand recollections rather than certainties. Perhaps there is nothing, perhaps Nureyev was an enigma and a closed book, never telling anyone his innermost thoughts. Certainly he wasn't able to tell anyone of his true thoughts of his home country, since he was a wanted man there after defecting, and had to be extremely careful not to put those he loved who were still living in the USSR in any more danger by him being 'too outspoken'.
In fact, the one thing that the documentarian completely took for granted from his audience was their historical knowledge. It would have been very difficult for the younger viewer to have understood much of the film in terms of politics - which played a hugely important role in the film, whether it did in Nureyev's life or not - since the whole idea of Communism and a State Controlled country such as The USSR and their 'powers' and the fear that they wielded were taken for granted. Therefore comparing Nureyev to Yuri Gagarin as a model for Russian excellence, and the significance of his returning to Russia to work there within a few days of the Berlin Wall coming down as well as much more would have been totally lost on anyone under 50.
The documentary was also very fragmented and disjointed. Far too many ideas in documentary filming employed alongside each other to make a confusing collage of info-bites. Quotations from various sources and pertinent information typed onto a white screen was one idea; using modern dancers to recreate a ballet on a studio stage set was another; voice-overs, actual TV interviews, archive newsreel footage, archive footage of Nureyev dancing, an actress and an actor miming scenes from his childhood dance teaching; and music - too loud really to be background music playing and cutting out and starting immediately with a totally unrelated piece without any segue, all made for a very mismatched and unsatisfying watch.
The voice-overs were related by family, friends, colleagues, almost anyone who had known him or had some contact with him that was still alive. And to make matters worse, when it was Nureyev himself who was supposedly speaking on the voice-overs it was more often than not Sian Phillips instead. Very odd!
We were told of his poverty and being brought up in a small rural Southern Ural community, to him taking dancing lessons against his parent's wishes, to him leaving to train in Leningrad, to him touring and his time in Paris, to his defection, to his meeting with and falling in love with the great ballet dancer Erik Bruhn, his partnership with Margot Fonteyn, and their subsequent deaths. But all of this is readily available in the first chapter of any of the many sources of information about Nureyev whether it be in a 'Who's Who' book, a cyclopedia or even an online search; and so nothing new, surprising or revelatory even came to the fore in this two hour long documentathon!
For those who know nothing of Rudolph Nureyev, then this documentary is as good a starting place as any. However, if what you were after was an intelligent, thoughtful and informative documentary, delving deeper into the man and his craft, pass it by.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 30/12/18
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