'The White Crow'—inspired by a biography by Julie Kavanagh—is pleasant to watch, even if its narrative approach can grate
RUDOLF NUREYEV was marked out as different from birth, delivered to a peasant family on a train in Siberia in 1938. He was unusual in coming to formal ballet training late, aged 17. He stood out at school in caring about passion and storytelling as much as technical precision. He embarrassed the Soviet Union by defecting in 1961, whereafter he became a global sensation. He died from AIDS in 1993.
The film does not take a chronological approach to his life, leaping between Nureyev’s impoverished childhood in Ufa, his training at the Vaganova Academy and his time with the Kirov Ballet as its male star. The bulk of the action takes place in May 1961, as the Kirov performs in Paris. Nureyev is enchanted by the city, and befriends Clara Saint , a socialite, despite the orders of his handlers not to mingle with Westerners.
Yet the beauty of his ballet, which should have acted as a counterbalance, is not replicated. The dancing is rather ordinary—though the audience is shown many training montages—and the official performances feel low-key. Short extracts from classic works seem more dressy than dramatic, only hinting at the innovation, such as borrowing from female line and posture, that Nureyev brought to his art. This is disappointing given that the man is so famed for fiery theatricality.
Nor does the viewer get a sense of the full implications of his decision to flee the Soviet Union. In the film Pushkin, when interviewed by the KGB, says Nureyev just wanted to dance, but questions of creative freedom are not probed throughout. Some burly men follow Nureyev as he frequents cafés and bars, and he gets told off by the Kirov’s management for flouting the curfew, but there is little sense of a tangible threat, or the horror of the punishment that might await back home.
The film—inspired by a biography by Julie Kavanagh—is pleasant to watch, even if its narrative approach can grate. Mr Ivenko is undoubtedly glamorous, brooding when he needs to be, sometimes funny. Ms Kavanagh says that she feels “The White Crow” does some justice to the point of her book, which was to portray Nureyev’s obsession for dance, his artistic “tunnel vision”.
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