Ralph Fiennes manages to steer a somewhat tortuous journey through Nureyev's early life and then his dance career up to the time of his defection to the West. At times, the story arc is rather confused by the constant flips between past and 'present'. Nevertheless, we soon see that precedents for Nureyev's life choices prove interesting in themselves. Dancing by Oleg Ivenko is evocative of the great man himself. A downside of the almost documentary style treatment is that Nureyev's adult professional dance career is compressed and reduced in importance such that when we reach the key point of the film we are nonplussed as to why this particular dancer is the subject of so much controversy, closely watched by KGB agents and feted by professional dancers we've never heard of. Beautiful script by David Hare, lovely cinematography, well chosen actors but in total, a mite too uneven to be perfection. Viewers should also note that there was an earlier docudrama entitled 'Rudolph Nureyev- Dance to Freedom', 2015, from which White Crow appears to filch its story arc. In truth, Nureyev is far more of an enigma than either film suggests.
Review of The White Crow
