The Dancer Upstairs (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	127:42
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Malkovich
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Javier Bardem Juan Diego Botto Laura Morante Elvira Mínguez Alexandra Lencastre Oliver Cotton Luis Miguel Cintra Javier Manrique Abel Folk Marie-Anne Berganza Lucas Rodríguez Xabier Elorriaga Natalia Dicenta
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Alberto Iglesias Pedro Malgheas Nina Simone

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired English Titling French French Titling Italian Italian Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     John Malkovich's production company's first production was Ghost World - so they're a smart and edgy little bunch of compañeros. And all that intelligence and edginess manifests itself in his film directorial debut, The Dancer Upstairs. This is a disturbing, compelling and almost hypnotic film with a fascinating heritage. The screenplay was written by Nicholas Shakespeare (apparently, he is a very distant relative of that other Mr S) as an adaptation of his own novel of the same name. The novel was written as a speculative text inspired by the real life revolutionary President Gonzalo (real name, Abimael Guzmán) of Peru, who in the 1980's instigated a revolutionary army, the Shining Path. An elusive and enigmatic figure, Gonzalo instigated terror on the streets without publicising a manifesto that explained his demands and, apparently, killing anyone who tried to approach him. Many of the terror devices depicted in this film were the true calling cards of Shining Path, including using dead dogs as message bearers and the use of animals and children as sacrificial bearers of explosives. Shakespeare has written an account of his fascination with this figure which you can read by clicking here. What is extraordinary about this story is that many of the elements that he invented for his story's revolutionary figure, Ezequiel, turned out to actually be facts about Guzmán which were only learned on his capture in 1992. So fact and fiction create their own strange dance in the very text of this film, and it was a blessing that Shakespeare and Malkovich were able to collaborate directly in the making of The Dancer Upstairs.

     We begin with a group of weary travellers in a decrepit old truck somewhere in South America, listening to Nina Simone give an almost hypnotic and interminable preamble to a song. The somnambulist group are obviously escaping somewhere or something, but what? A guard stands in the road to wave them down and without a moment's hesitation, they run him down and drive off. Finally they arrive at the border where the head guard, a bookish and obviously intellectual chap named Agostín Rejas (Javier Bardem), and his partner, Pisac, a corruptible official, encounter the group. Why is there blood on the bumper of the car? They hit a dog. And there is the dead dog in the back of the truck. Hmmm. One of the group has only temporary papers, so Rejas takes a Polaroid of him according to regulations. As he goes to take a phone call, the freshly bribed Pisac allows the group to speed off.

      Telescope five years hence and  Agostín is now a detective lieutenant in the capital's police force. He and his young offsider, Detective Sergeant Sucre (Juan Diego Botto) are on diplomatic protection duty when they encounter the most macabre of advertisements, a dead dog hanging from a lamp post, a stick of dynamite in its throat and a sign around its neck saying "The point of the next century will be for man to rediscover his gods. Long live El Presidente Ezequiel." This sinister philosophical portent is succeeded by a series of kidnappings, suicide bombings, murders and similar vile advertisements. Are these isolated incidents or the stirrings of revolution?

      Rejas and Sucre are enlisted to investigate these atrocities. They form a team with Detective Llosa (Elvira Mínguez), trying to unearth the creators of the mayhem, but in a city in such chaos, opposition comes not just from the enemy but from the corruption emanating from one's own side as well. Rumour and fear ripple through the streets, and the price of a life is outrageously cheap. His meticulous investigations are thwarted by a government that is more interested in a result than necessarily the truth, and Rejas is left defending himself on all fronts. Following the horrific execution of dignitaries at a theatre performance, the government imposes martial law on a city that is already racked with graft, bankruptcy and paranoia, and this only further exasperates Rejas' attempts to find the truth.

      His one consolation in such a despairing situation is the respite of his home life. His young daughter, Laura (Marie-Anne Berganza) is an innocent, beautiful extension of himself, and his wife Sylvina (Alexandra Lencastre) is a bright though vacuous bauble of a woman. Her obsessions are with all things external and to her, the promotion of her husband is a point of pride, even though, as a government worker in a bankrupt bureaucracy, the point is moot, as he is not being paid. Laura though, is different. To Rejas, she represents purity and nobility and beauty. She is learning dance and her focused, fluid concentration as she moves is a balm to his blighted spirit. Her dancing teacher, Yolanda (Laura Morante) is a mysterious, elegant and subtle woman - the antithesis of Sylvina's shallowness. Rejas is fascinated by her and finds himself ever more intrigued by this enigmatic and solitary waif who is so completely afraid of the dark.

      I am trying to give you an entry into the story without giving too much away, so let me just say that in this physically, spiritually and morally corrupt environment, Rejas finds himself and his home at the epicentre of an explosive situation. His charge to discover and capture the elusive philosophical revolutionary leader is thwarted by secrets and lies on all sides. No one is entirely as they seem, and everyone appears to have a hidden agenda.

      Malkovich has managed to make a film that is genuinely frightening and suspenseful without ever relying on the old Hollywood bag of tricks. The pacing is deliberately slow and the trad devices of "leader music" to direct one's emotional response are thankfully completely absent. That vacuum provides the appropriate amount of space for a more realistic sense of horror - a dangly, loose-edged feel where one never really knows what will happen next. He has created an environment where we see people unceremoniously bundled into cars and driven to an uncertain fate. There is no sense of security for the viewer. We don't know who to trust any better than the characters within the film. The horrific development of seemingly innocent situations into violent, inescapable bloodbaths strips away any sense of security that the viewer may have. We are afforded no omnipotent luxuries as an audience. Things of beauty become things of horror. Tender relationships reveal deadly thorns in their centre. Everything is dangerous and life feels cheap and futile. This is not a simple "good guy/bad guy" dichotomy - like life, it's much more complicated than that.

    In the context of such degradation, we as an audience cling, like Rejas, to simple things of beauty, desperate to find something we can trust, and something that can maintain an incorruptible purity.

     I found this film one of the most satisfying cinematic experiences I've had for some time. It is slow and meandering without question, but I think it is a good choice by Malkovich to not distil the action to just the "explosive" bits, rather to place it horrifically in the context of everyday life. To me, this increases the vulnerable response we have to it as an audience - that terrifying notion that at any moment, an ordinary day can turn into an unmitigated horror. The slower pacing increases that tension and emphasises the ghastly capacity that humanity has to turn upon itself.

     Javier Bardem is absolutely magnificent in this film. His portrayal is subtle, low key and completely convincing. His Rejas is not a knight in shining armour. He is a flawed human being, capable of arrogance and duality, and as needy as any other, but his heroism is in his struggle, not his triumph. At one point, he is referred to as a "tomcat" - a matchable opponent to the leader of Ezequiel. That is precisely the portrayal Bardem delivers - a wily, philosophical and sharply intellectual individual who is by no means the Hollywood superhero crime fighter, but someone who needs to fight out of his own personal morass in order to survive, let alone succeed.

      Malkovich's own approach to acting is evident in the way he has directed this film. He allows his performers a great deal of scope to transport their internal landscapes to the audience with long, languorous shots straight to camera. This never feels self-conscious - it's more a notion that thought takes more than a split second to form upon a face, and it's a more complex reality than just, for example, "a-raised-eyebrow-means-suspicion" look, that often is shown in more Hollywood oriented films. (Matt LeBlanc's character in Friends, Joey Tribbiani, once gave an entire lesson on "eyebrow acting" that was hilariously and shockingly true of the Hollywood style.)

       The Dancer Upstairs is ponderous, absorbing, horrific and yet redemptive in its telling. It requires concentration and attention from its audience and assumes that the viewer will be an active participant in the story. It is not an easy watch in many ways, but it is ultimately very rewarding and has a haunting quality that makes one ponder the value of life.

Video

     Thankfully, this is an extremely good transfer.

     It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 16x9 enhanced which is true to its cinematic release.

     The transfer is very clear, with excellent shadow detail and this is a mercy, as much of the film is in low light situations. There is no low level noise and no light flaring or distracting halation present. Grain levels are fine throughout.

      The colour rendition appears to be spot on. There are times when the palette is deliberately muted and set towards bluer tones, but these are all production choices and they are transferred accurately. Skin tones are excellent throughout.

     With the exception of minor aliasing and occasional motion blur there are few MPEG artefacts and only the smallest number of film artefacts present. None were a distraction from the content.

     Subtitles were clean, accurate, timely and very welcome!

     This is a single sided, dual layered disc. The layer change is at 77:49 and presents no distractions at all.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     There are three audio tracks on this DVD - an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and 5.1 presentations in French and Italian as well.

     The quality of the dialogue in itself was actually okay, but there was so much mumbling or speech between barely moving lips that I was grateful for the English subtitles and kept them on for the duration of the film. Given that the storyline is quite complex, you may find this a helpful option as well. Audio sync presented no problems.

    The musical score by Alberto Iglesias and Pedro Malgheas was absolutely magnificent. Music was a key factor in this film - the prologue by Nina Simone to her song Who Knows Where The Time Goes? and its final performance at the end of the film create a haunting refrain that is augmented by superb folk music and perfect musical choices. This is a soundtrack worthy of separate purchase.

     The surround channels were effectively used - not overdone but present when necessary, and the subwoofer was similarly used in a restrained but appropriate manner.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     There are no extras on this disc.

Menu

     The menu design is themed around the movie. It is 16x9 enhanced. The main menu features a looped animated clip from the movie and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio.

       This disc is a rental version, so hopefully the sell-through version will be a little more forthcoming with extras.

     The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Theatrical trailer
• Director and Actor commentary by John Malkovich and Javier Bardem
• Sundance Channel - Journeys with Malkovich
• Making-of Featurette

     The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on:

• Nothing

     Until such time as we can assess the sell-through R4 version, R1 is the winner.

     Tense, intelligent and complex, The Dancer Upstairs is a remarkable piece of theatre that absorbs, intrigues and haunts the viewer. If you are fond of having all your choices made for you and everything spelled out, this is not the film for you. Depicting the horrors of revolutionary South America and the Judas choices it elicits from its participants, John Malkovich has created a film that demands quite a lot from the viewer, but he eminently rewards your involvement. Highly recommended.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall