First Hit: A delightful and insightful film to the wonderfully joyful Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo dance company.
This film dives into this all male ballet dance company in a way that brings laughter, joy, sorrow and a deep human connection to the audience.
The dancers are an eclectic group from all over the world and their stories are similar: They didn’t fit well in their personal social situations and they love to dance. And dance they can. These men are extremely skillful dancers and by doing both the female and male roles of the ballets they dance, they bring an athleticism to the parts that are both different and wonderful.
To add to the engagement for themselves and the audiences, they augment their dances with a whimsical sassy comedic bent that is both physically and choreographically challenging.
This company has been together for more than forty years and it performs all over the world. Being gay, the dancers have struggled through the AIDS epidemic as well as enjoyed marriages between the dancers. This juxtaposition of how society has learned to embrace them is also visible by the number of children that come to see their performances. In the early years, parents did not bring their children because the gay dancers were not accepted by society, today lots of children come see them.
The film follows a few dancers more closely than others although my impression is that these dancers represented the group quite well. The current director use to dance with the company and his partner, also a dancer with the company, died from AIDS related causes. Additionally, the film follows them on tour to a few of the cities they regularly perform in and not surprisingly, they are a huge hit in Japan.
Bobbie Jo Hart wrote and directed this film with a lot of heart. The intimacy that is shared with the camera shows how well he embraced this subject.
Overall: One of the most delightful and heart based films I’ve seen all year.