The Dancer Upstairs Review:

THE FILM
Rejas (Javier Bardem), an idealistic police officer, is on the trail of a terrorist group led by the mysterious Ezequiel in an unnamed Latin American capital. While the investigation draws numerous dead ends the family man Rejas finds himself attracted to his daughters ballet instructor, Yolanda (Laura Morante).

Hard to believe this is the directorial debut of the other worldly actor John Malkovich as The Dancer Upstairs is a film grounded in day to day realism and follows a policeman in the patient game of detective work. The story is loosely based on The Shining Path terrorist group operating in Peru during the 80s whose leader was caught after many years and this movie effectively gets across the patience required to catch such a revolutionary leader. Rejas must think like his prey and wait painfully for a break while support is gathered for the movement. Luckily this isn’t as thumb twiddling as it sounds and Malkovich keeps the tension tight without resorting to guns blazing shoot-outs or glorious slo-mo explosions. This is as far away from Hollywood as you can get and each brutal act of terrorism yields some sort of reaction. Even the daring mission at the end to capture the eponymous leader has the excitement of an action movie but without any of the frills.

In many ways it has a lot in common with a Michael Mann cop movie, close camera work getting into the everyday job of the police force while the guns and bombs are handled with respect. Think of it as Heat without focus on the bad guy or the goggle eyed Pacino as Bardem is the complete opposite, with a very restrained performance. The film uses foreign actors but is spoken in English meaning everyone involved is concentrating throughout giving the impression of intense thought to every line or expression. The love story never really seems to take centre stage but the two leads effectively get across something unrequited and this leads to a memorable and emotional ending.

This is an extremely relevant film in today’s society and points out that a terrorist leader is just a man like any other. They could be someone you crossed paths with in the past or just the guy who rents the flat upstairs but it’s not them that’s worrying. It’s the ideas they feed into society that gain momentum and rebels against the government. While the motives are never clear here Malkovich effectively portrays a capital in crisis.

EXTRAS
The strangest feature here is the 5 minute Sundance Channel featurette that follows an increasingly bizarre Malkovich as he travels to London. As you’d expect he’s vague and pretty nonsensical. Better is the ‘Revealing the Dancer Upstairs’ documentary that, while repeats many scenes from the movie, veers away from Malkovich and to the writer Nicolas Shakespeare. His brilliant script came from his own experience in Peru when The Shining Path were operating and what came from that is a very personal story. Surprisingly the commentary featuring Malkovich and Bardem is actually quite revealing. OK, Bardem seems there mostly to correct Malkovich’s Spanish but Malkovich himself is a lot more personable and eager to share his experiences. He addresses the problems of using dead animals that led to many complaints (he used frozen road kill) and also describes the many locations used to make up the fictional country.

Rich Badley

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