Farewell (Tuesday, May 28, 2013)

Sorry readers, but this is the final post for my blog, Diving into Ballet. I hope I have inspired some of you to take beginning classes and learn more about the ballet world through film. If not that, I hope I have entertained you!

The last documentary I watched is called, The Dancer. Unfortunately, it was my least favorite of all the ballet documentaries I have watched thus far during my senior project. I think it was meant to be one of those artsy types of films because there were many disparate elements. First of all, they never introduced the ballerina the documentary was based upon, Katja Bjorner. They didn’t give any background information on her; the audience was unable to make any connection with her. They didn’t show her living situation, her family, etc. I would think that a documentary that is about one person would show that person in their daily life, all aspects of it. They also didn’t introduce any of the people who were working with her. We sort of had to infer people’s positions. By the end of the documentary, 

I had an idea of who Katja’s teacher was, but there were many adults working with her so it was somewhat hard to tell. Also, it was mentioned briefly that the narrator/filmer of the documentary was an aging actor. Occasionally, there were brief interviews/conversations between Katja and him. (However, we never actually saw his face). It was never clear if the documentary was this actor’s idea or someone else hired him for the job. It wasn’t even clear why they chose him. He added no significance to the documentary other than his short discussions with Katja about actually ‘acting’ when playing a role in a ballet. I also thought it was boring that the documentary was filled with silent scenes of Katja dancing. I loved watching her dance, but it is much more interesting to get a variety of scenes!