The White Crow (2018)
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Director Ralph Fiennes captures the raw physicality and brilliance of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet’s most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas led him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
A fascinating insight into the early life of Rudolf Nureyev and the politics of the cold war.
manders_steve2 August 2019 – imdb
I once heard David Stratton say that one of the greatest joys of film it its ability to transport you to other worlds for a couple of hours – immersing in something totally away from routine normality. Well, this film did that for me – to the world of competitive professional ballet dancing in post WW2 Soviet Union. It opened the door to how young Rudolf gained his start, the various companies he danced with and trained in, the challenges of life in soviet era USSR, the cold war and political trepidations of defection to the west.
Ukrainian dancer Oleg Ivenko is just wonderful as the adult Nureyev, all the more surprising in his first film role which required him to learn Russian, improve his English as well as emulate one of the most famous and flamboyant dancers of all time. Ralph Fiennes is featured as the gently spoken dance teacher Alexander Pushkin as well as directing the film. I thought the film captured the challenges of the professional dance world admirably, and Nureyev’s well known headstrong approach to dance, life and everything was clear for all to see.
There are a lot of time shifts from Nureyev as the adult to child and adolescent, but the changes generally supported the storytelling and there were enough clues as to where we were.
The lack of direct reference to issues of Nureyev’s homosexuality has been commented on by some; its absence didn’t occur to me as an issue, because there was plenty going on and adding another major strand could well have pushed the film from the “possibly a bit too long” territory to “outlasted its welcome”.
