Prima Ballerina
by Laurent Gentot
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DVD details
Actor: Svetlana Zakharova, Ulyana LopatkinaDirector: Laurent Gentot
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Original Language); Russian (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 53 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-12-08
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
DVD Reviews of Prima Ballerina
DVD Review: Nice but not special
Summary: 2 Stars
This DVD on Lopatkina and Zakharova is billed as "a double portrait of two icons of contemporary Russian ballet." And so it is, but not the way some buyers might expect. I bought the DVD assuming 'Prima Ballerina' would be an interesting compare/constrast program on these two fine dancers, but the DVD actually consists of two separate half hour programs, both near identical in terms of structure and format. How much more engaging it might have been if the director, Laurent Gentot, had looked at both these artists together and chosen to explore their similarities and differences head on! Instead, this is a strictly-for-the-fans DVD.
The program offers very little in the way of biographical information about either dancer, and the general merits of the DVD are rather exaggerated in blurb on the backcover. I'm not sure the interviews with the dancers are really terribly "revealing". Nor are the ballet excerpts seen in the films "extended and transporting". They are too short to be called "extended" and are far from "transporting" when much of the footage is shot from side-on, haphazardly filmed and edited, and (the greatest crime of all!) subject to the director's added 'special effects'. The worst is an excerpt of Lopatkina dancing in a work by Petit, during which the performance footage is partially overlaid with rehearsal footage so that it's impossible to make any sense of the dancing at all. Shame on you, Mr Gentot! As an added disadvantage, the soundtrack is cheap and nasty in parts.
Of course, if you are a fan of Lopatkina and/or Zakharova, then you'll probably want to add this DVD to your collection anyway, and, thankfully, I suppose it's not an overly expensive purchase. But if you're after a documentary of greater depth that focuses on Russian ballerinas, skip this film and buy the the recently released 'Ballerina' instead. It's a superior DVD in every respect, including in terms of film length and the editing of its content. Plus Lopatkina and Zakharova both feature in it.
More Prima Ballerina reviews:
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