Directed by Frederick Wiseman PG cert, limited release, 159 min
IN 1967, film-maker Frederick Wiseman set out his stall with Titicut Follies, a searing documentary account of the regime at a Massachusetts correctional facility for the criminally insane. The film proved so incendiary that it remained tied up in legal gymnastics until 1997. Earlier this year, it provided Martin Scorsese with the inspiration for the spookier moments of Shutter Island.
Wiseman has made dozens of highly regarded documentaries since that provocative debut, yet none has made such an impact. This most scientific of artists is rigorous in his understanding and application of fly-on-the-wall principles. Known for staking out prisons, schools and hospitals for years on end, Wiseman will never allow his subjects to play for the camera. From the hundreds of hours of footage he shoots for each picture, no frame is used until his subjects have forgotten he is there.
Like much of his oeuvre, La Danse, a study of the Paris Opera Ballet, is defined by an apparent lack of interest in personalities – ballerinas or anybody else. Indeed, those hoping for a subplot featuring The Little Dancer Who Could should look elsewhere. Wiseman's concerns have always been the nature and psychology of organisation. Thus, La Danseis defiantly non-narrative. Instead, we are treated to a painstaking examination of the institution's minutiae. Dancers rehearse. Bureaucrats mutter. Costumiers sew buttons and decorators plaster walls. On one occasion we are – almost literally – asked to watch paint dry.
Fans of the Wiseman milieu and bun-headed ballet fans may well be riveted, but casual viewers are unlikely to respond with too much enthusiasm. Unless, of course, snoring counts as a response.
