The Dancer (2016) User Reviews

an engaging bio pic of an avant-garde Parisian dancer

[CineMuseFilms · 8/10 · 5 October 2017]

Historians have a way of sterilising cinema. So many words are wasted on whether a film is accurate instead of understanding and enjoying film as an artform. The Dancer (2016) is a bio-pic based on the life of Loíe Fuller who pioneered a hybrid dance performance that integrated visual spectacle and physical movement. Historians can fuss over facts, but others will enjoy what is an aesthetically intense story of creative innovation in late 19th Century Paris.

The story opens with Loíe (Soko) raised by her drunken father on a farm in America. A keen reader with a vivid imagination, she dreams of a career as an actress. After her father dies, she uses money stolen from a would-be seducer to cross the Atlantic in search of fame. She stumbles upon a Parisian theatre looking for a performer to fill the stage during interval. As a talented artist with an eye for design, she conceives of a dance act that disguises her modest dancing talent and creates a dramatic serpentine performance using a costume of batons and swirling bedsheets. Her act is immediately popular. Although physically arduous, the performance evolves to using silk, coloured lights, and dramatic music, and suddenly Loíe is the toast of Paris. When the talented teenage dancer Isadora Duncan (Lilly_Rose Depp) joins the troupe, the stress of dancing on Loíe's body, her penchant to overspend, and her emerging sexual ambivalence, all begin to take their toll.

This is a luscious film to watch. Its rich colour palette, top-shelf production values and unconventional characterisations create the dramatic energy which drives the narrative. Undoubtedly, it is Soko's physicality and her acting style that makes this film work. She has an almost androgynous beauty that the camera exploits; in some scenes she appears dashingly handsome, in others, sublimely feminine. With an emotive range that switches effortlessly from ingénue to sophisticate, she transfixes with her gender-free expressiveness, even under the on- screen competitive pressure of the beautiful young Isadora. The serpentine dance performances are mesmerising. They hang in a space somewhere between classical ballet, modern jazz, and a gyrating living sculpture draped in wings of silk accompanied by Vivaldi under spotlights. It's easy to understand their immense popularity as a dramatic innovation in stage performance. Above all else, The Dancer captures this spirit of excitement.

Reading this film as history gets in the way of enjoying it as visual spectacle and engaging narrative. Loíe Fuller was praised by luminaries of her time, such as Yeats, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rodin, but largely forgotten in her native country. The Dancer is a tribute to an avant-garde artiste whose legacy lives on in theatrical dance effects that have become an artform in their own right.

A very beautiful film directed with vigor and taste

[maria-douza · 8/10 · 15 November 2016]

A very beautiful film directed with vigor and taste. To classify this film as biopic does not do justice to it and it is even misleading. I read so many ill directed criticism on what is and what is not historically accurate in the movie. Who cares? Who would criticize the Greek poet Kavafy for misrepresenting historical figures in his poems? For me 'The Dancer' is a poetic film on beauty and the passion for creativity and it was a pleasure to watch. For two hours I was immersed in the film's world, relishing every bit of it; the elliptical decor, the unreal almost lighting, the spectacular dance, the energy. Indeed what I liked most was the fact that the film did not make an effort to faithfully reconstruct an era, but rather create its own unique universe combining various elements in a coherent whole. Let alone the amazing amount of work that went into it, the production design, the choreography, the music. The audacious directorial approach is justified by the result. Soko's choice to play Loie Fuller was excellent as she brought into the part her own fierce determination to develop in the show and music business matched with confident and truthful acting. The film is an amazing feat anyway, but even more so as a debut feature.

A hybrid product. But well-made and with the fantastic Soko

[guy-bellinger · 8/10 · 3 December 2016]

"The Dancer", Stéphanie di Giusto's first opus, is an exciting, if not faultless, first film. Ambitious and finely crafted, this achieved project undeniably deserves praise but to some extent only.

Let's begin with its merits. Its most obvious one is pedagogic. "The Dancer" indeed makes known to the general public the existence of an exceptional artist, Loïe Fuller, this American lady who revolutionized dance in New York first and then in the Paris of the Belle Epoque... before falling into unjust oblivion. To get back to Fuller, she was an amazingly inventive artist who, though no more than ordinarily gifted as a dancer, created a style unprecedented in the art she practiced. Not content to just dance, she managed to captivate audiences in her own personal way, the novelty of her manner lying in her waving robes extended on bamboo batons while rotating at the same time like a whirling dervish. And as if that were not enough to make her a sensation, she enhanced her performances by means of lighting and mirrors, thus creating a magical aura around her. All that made her so successful that she was immediately copied and had to file patents to discourage such imitations. Her being admired by such important figures as Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin and Marie Curie is a further indicator of the powerful fascination she exerted on her contemporaries. Another asset of the film is its good production values (the settings and costumes really give you the feeling that you have been traveling through time and that you ARE in America and in France at the turn of the 20th century). Also of note is di Giusto's talent for filming the dance sequences. The Serpentine Dance and the Mirror Dance in particular are performed and filmed with such magic that the viewer just cannot watch them otherwise than agape. Danced by the amazing Soko to musical fireworks (notably Vivaldi arranged by Max Richter), these two sequences are really an out of this world experience. Naturally, not all the film can live up to such heights, but at least they exist: shown independently of the full movie, one could go as far as to call them masterpieces. The last strong point of "The Dancer" is its two main actresses : Soko, first, who has more than one common point with Loïe Fuller : no greater beauty (by traditional standards) than her and almost her lookalike, she is not either a great dancer (or even a dancer at all) but following Fuller's example in real life, she managed by dint of demanding physical training to equal her model. As for the younger Lily-Rose Depp, graced with a slimmer, more elegant body, and whose dancing is gloriously gracious and effortless, she is perfect for the role of Isadora Duncan, another pioneering performer who, although discovered by Loïe, would not be long in superseding her sponsor.

But, as I put it before, this globally good film is not totally satisfying. To be more accurate, it can be... but if and only if you did not know anything about Loïe Fuller before viewing it. Supposing you did, you will probably feel irritated and frustrated. For is "The Dancer" supposed to be a biopic, following its central figure from cradle to tomb ? Or is it a fantasy inspired by her, in other words an original creation faithful to her spirit but taking liberties with the facts (like for instance Ken Russell's "Music Lovers" or Joann Sfar's "Gainsbourg, vie héroïque"). The trouble is that the finished product is... a bit of both. Actually, some parts of the narrative are true to the facts (Loïe discovering the effect she has on people while acting a scene of hypnotism during the play "Quack Medical Doctor" in 1891; Loïe at the Folies Bergère; her hiring the Sada Yako Japanese company during the Paris 1900 exhibition as well as her signing Isadora Duncan in 1902). But others are downright made up: Loïe was not born in the Wild West but in a Chicago suburb; her father, Reuben Fuller, was not a French born adventurer but the owner of a boarding house and then of a hotel, her mother was not only a starchy temperance activist, but also

a dedicated supporter of her daughter who went as far as to accompany her to Europe in 1892; Loïe was not courted for a decade by a French drug- addict noble but was married for three years to a rich industrialist who proved to be a... trigamist; she craved being hired at the Opera de Paris but unless I am mistaken, her dream never really came true. Worst of all, whereas she gave up heterosexuality after her disastrous marriage, turned to Sapphic love and had a lifelong relationship with Gabrielle Bloch, her collaborator and admirer, nothing of the kind appears in the film. If Gabrielle IS shown by Loïe's side in many sequences, it is only professional reasons. How come? Why on earth erase this aspect of Miss Fuller's life if it is to replace it with "traditional" male-female sex attraction? Might Di Giusto be homophobic ? Not really, if you take into account that Loïe is seen having sex intercourse with her protégé Isadora. But even in these conditions there is a catch: the two latter women's relationship is seen as sorrowful for Loïe whereas she was very happy with Gabrielle. Does the author mean to say that unorthodox loves must be punished? I hope not.

In any event, those reservations should not deter you from seeing "The dancer", a globally well made movie which, in spite of everything, constitutes a loving tribute to a great name of dance. Well interpreted and at times even inspired (the already mentioned dance sequences), it is well worth seeing. Simply, the definitive filmed version of Loïe Fuller's rich life and innovative art remains to be made.

Beautiful dancing and costumes, very disjointed story

[istara · 7/10 · 18 October 2017]

The Good: the wonderful costumes, the stunning dance routines, and the performance of Soki in the lead role. Purely as a spectacle, there's plenty to enjoy.

The Bad: the storyline was completely disjointed. Certain scenes and interactions made no sense, suddenly following on from one another in a jarring way. There seemed to be gaps (scenes edited out for length?). It was hard to tell how much time was supposed to have elapsed. The way Soki meets Gabrielle in a car park, and then next scene she's suddenly got some huge show happening: it was bewildering.

Let's not even get started on the confusing relationships. I'm not sure what I was supposed to be watching there, or who was already supposed to have slept with whom.

Ultimately this would have been a better film if they had cut down on the endless scenes of Soki's pain and exercise and bleeding eyes and ice baths, and added a bit more storytelling. Much of the US/ New York stuff could have been cut/tightened (particularly since it wasn't biographically accurate, and served minimal apparent purpose. Save for Ulliel, the NY cast didn't reappear once we moved to Paris).

Techno-Bird

[ReadingFilm · 10/10 · 9 December 2019]

The body as art is not hinted, it's the piece. This indulgence in the sensual somehow does not invite perversion. The effect is it's wholly performance authorial, a complete integration of performer and role, which happens just once in a blue moon. She almost dies each time, like a birth effect, same time it brings a cinema of transcendence. And maybe the french would roll their eyes and say, can't believe he fell for our tricks. That she's bringing the effect of the bad girl. But it sees no difference between her, her dance, the cinema. The film could be science fiction, like she is some techno-bird, cranking the levers, the lights, the darkness she emerges under spotlight, her dance like a ritual for the space gods; it's all very steampunk, but where here the era of industrialism begins for great mechanizations to streamline and integrate, so too would be art by the same process, to the same ends but in the way of the ecstatic truth. I'm envious because who ever gets so actualized? You have talents and presences and great ones but rare to actualize within a piece, to see one so wholly expressed where it feels like some endpoint. I sense Soko inspires that like some cinema muse. It's hard to talk about it rationally, same as dance.

A lot of ugliness, a little beauty

[richard-1787 · 3/10 · 23 October 2016]

For the last several decades, we have had movies showing us the grime behind the apparently beautiful world of the dance. This is another in that by now too long series, one that has nothing new to add. We see lots of ugly backstage scenes, and then, very rarely, a glimpse of the beauty of a Fuller performance.

Part of that is because, if one were to judge from this movie, Fuller was very much a one-trick pony. She was not, in any significant sense, a dancer. Rather, she was a show woman who figured out how to use lighting and mirrors to create a beautiful, magical effect as she twirled around waving robes extended on bamboo batons.

In fact, however, the real Loie Fuller was a fascinating and very versatile woman involved in developing new lighting techniques and all sorts of other things to improve stage performance. This movie VERY much shortchanges her, and should not in any way be taken as a biopic. Why a woman director would reduce an evidently very intelligent and interesting woman to a pouting bundle of uncontrolled emotions I do not know.

If you were to believe this movie - and you shouldn't - there really wasn't much to Fuller's art. Nothing like ballet, or modern dance, or jazz dancing, or ... Just twirling around, waving her robes, while different colored lights and background mirrors enhanced the effect.

So we are left with her life. If it was at all as it is presented in the movie, and there is no reason to assume that that was the case, it was pretty miserable. We see that she spends lots of time building up her shoulder muscles so she can keep waving those robes, with the result that her arms often hurt. The light from the colored light hurts her eyes. She ends up in several confusing and bad relationships. A rough life, in other words. But the movie does nothing to make us care.

This movie needed a MUCH better script to make us understand and sympathize with Fuller. Otherwise, except for the few moments when she goes into her dance, it's just a lot of uncontrolled emotions that we have no reason to care about. It seems a real shame to have reduced what was evidently a very interesting and intelligent woman to a bundle of uninteresting emotions.

I really like this chick, - Soko!'

[juanmuscle · 10/10 · 30 January 2019]

I've seen her in 'Augustine' and was very impressed, I tried to find her other films and they are nowhere...

But this was very very nice, Despite that I watched it with ill-timed subs that were I think three to four scenes behind - I had to endure most of it, wishing I oh so new French but I don't.. it definitely sounds lovely though.. lol

But in the end, I did see some people dislike, I don't know why, I did see some critics give it rotten fruits , you say tomatoe I say tomato, whatever, they claimed the writing took liberties with facts... And another wanted to see so much more, I'm like lady , do you want to chip in the funds it takes to see way way more in a film?

I mean was it not one of the most beautiful things to see? scene after succeeding scene, we are rapt with surge of euphoria at how beautiful everything is, it was very cool, and if it did not do justice to the dancer protagonist here on earth, I'm sure if she is not here, she is somewhere else, surely saying, 'dang, that was a fine fine piece of beautiful film making!'

Kristeva meets Busby Berkley but clichéd homophobic plot

[BebeJumeau · 2/10 · 2 October 2017]

The dance sequences were wonderful - all credit to Soko who did her own dancing, Fanny Sage who was body double to the delightful Lily Depp, and dance adviser US artist Jody Sperling a major dancer and innovative performer in her own right, whose work is excellently showcased here. I loved the intelligent and exciting re-staging of Fuller's dances and the more conceptual scene of Duncan's overtly erotic lap dance rapidly clearing multiple rooms of elderly fearful conservative white males - Kristeva meets Busby Berkley. Go to see the film for these breathtaking sequences alone

It was good to see a female director tackling a female subject

However the plot was inaccurate and ridiculous and clichéd in a manner that would be expected of Hollywood say in the 1950s. about 95% of the story apart from the dancing was made up. The decadent male junkie significant other and sponsor/art fund-er was an invention, the Montana/Wyoming childhood - possibly filmed in the Czech Republic was totally made up - although its nods in styling and lighting to those Europhile fantasies of the wild west - Heaven's Gate and the Hateful Eight were nice Easter eggs, the weird puritan temperance colony in New York where Fuller's on screen mother lived - adorned with a surprising amount of Catholic kitsch for a fundamentalist protestant cult - totally invented, the ignoring of Fuller's primary same-same lifestyle and the casting of Isadora Duncan as a duplicitous ambitious lesbian - All About Eve rang they wanted their plot line - makes the film down right homophobic And let's not mention the modernist myth of the outsider misunderstood genius battling through with courage and persistence ... yawn yawn yawn

All Today's vjs and video-performers should pay tribute to her by recognizing!

[vjdino-37683 · 8/10 · 23 December 2020]

Loïe Fuller (real name Mary-Louise), dancer-non-dancer actually choreographer, set designer and creator of theatrical machines based on the innovative use of electric light, fundamentally creative visionary, this last definition suits her in a literary way: all Today's vjs and video-performers should pay tribute to her by recognizing her pioneering in the visual arts as on the other hand, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Lumiere brothers did by immortalizing her in one of their films. The biopic-film by debut director Stéphanie Di Giusto, inspired by the biographical essay by Giovanni Lista, starts from the state of geographical as well as psychological isolation, in a remote county of Illinois dedicated to cattle breeding, where our heroine lives . Very harsh living conditions among rude cowboys who see Mary-Louise as a "strange" girl who prefers self-acting plays and poems rather than looking after animals. This will lead her to escape and start that wonderful artistic adventure, not without disappointments, with merits that will be recognized already in her life, especially in Europe, in Paris, home of all the avant-gardes of the nascent twentieth century. Her relationship with Isadora Duncan of which she produced the first appearances on stage is interesting, recognizing her role as a true dancer which she was not, but above all that innovative creativity that she knew well but which will also determine the beginning of her end.

Left me questioning director Stéphanie Di Giusto

[writersmorgue · 3/10 · 18 February 2024]

In many ways, this film was produced like most French films, where dialogue is not the guide for storytelling but rather the body and setting. I enjoy these films; however, most French directors will often mention that this type of aim for a film can pose more of a challenge compared to explanation through dialogue. Unfortunately for me, this was the case with The Dancer. The issue with dialogue being thrown on the back burner is the question it raises for the alternative, leaving room for as much success as there is for the opposite. Although Giusto had done a fair amount of research on Loïe Fuller (Marie Louise Fuller), her angle in which to portray Fuller's story is one of her own preferences, which is natural. But as with any artist and their own opinions and preferences, come the critics and theirs, followed by those dreadful expectations. Luckily, I'm not a critic whose expectations exclude the vision intended by the artist based on my opinion, since art is subjective to me. However, I could not ignore how utterly discontented the movie left me. The film, in general terms, is a well-exaggerated version of Fuller's biopic. Personally, I believe, depending on the changes, there is high risk in certain exaggerations of truth when it comes to biographical motion pictures. For example, the character Louis (who is a fictional character) was mentioned to be a sacrificial male who existed as a mere distraction from the fact that Loïe was homosexual. Giusto explained that it was personally important to her that the dancer's sexuality wasn't the subject. However, towards the end of the film, we witnessed a defeated Loïe who questioned her career and passion for dance, and I couldn't help but subconsciously wonder: was this because she was rejected by her protégé, Isadora Duncan? Did she really throw it all away for one-sided love? Loïe Fuller was displayed as a unique woman who moved freely and by her own law, so no, the fact that she was with a woman wasn't what I took away from this as the main subject, but rather her great sadness towards the rejection of Isadora. It was like she met her match, being faced with a free-spirited girl like herself, she fell in love and it drained her to the bone. It left a negative stain overall. Even without the very peculiar Louis, who lurked in the shadows of Loïe (hoping for her to be his, as she hoped the same from Isadora), other notices beyond the dancers sexuality would've stood out for me. At first I assumed the point was that Loïe, predominately, gave up one passion for another that only rejected her, and in turn, she let misery control her, made the ending a bit more off-track for me. Louis, though irrelevant to the truth of the story, was certainly entertaining. Though I still believe his reason for existing in the first place was unnecessary to the point of overshadowing the dancer's sexuality, I suppose what was also meant to aid in deluding the prominence of Fuller's sexuality was the very brief scenes that Soko (Loïe Fuller) and Lily-Rose Depp (Isadora Duncan) had where a bond was being formed. These scenes were a bit disappointing, but respectfully, I feel it is because they were rather rushed and cheap in essence. Lily Depp was praised by Giusto for being a superb actress at the age of 15-16, I believe. I'm afraid I would have to disagree. Giusto did well in casting Loïe; she mentioned wanting faces that weren't well known. But Lily's acting, although brief, constantly edged toward an amateur performance. She spoke as if she were reading the script in her head and moved as if acting too early on cue, among other things, like a slight lack of authenticity in speech and movement. Other things, like the time skips which felt too masked, but I suppose you will get that when you're doing a biopic and don't have a full portfolio of information about the person. And what about the forwarded ending where we see a Loïe who all of a sudden seems to have found herself? She's older and still teaching dance. I can imagine these choices in direction run the risk of ruining the cinematic aesthetic for viewers, and unfortunately for me, they did. I think generally it was an interesting movie, good in theory. It certainly did open my eyes to other forward thinkers of the 18th century, naming Loïe Fuller as one of them, and for that I can be grateful.