Let's (Not) Dance.

Italy - Drama – 100 min – Italian – 2011 - Director: Cinzia Bomoll – Cast: Allice Bellagamba, Andrea Montovoli

       Let’s (Not) Dance

            One thing that I can surely say I took away from this film is that David Bowie’s  “Let’s Dance” song pretty much says it all. I keep finding myself singing the chorus over and over again out loud reminding me of this trite yet cute film titled “Let’s Dance”.  However, I cannot completely dismiss this film’s lighthearted style, because this is where cultural differences comes into play. The film can be compared to the popular American dance films, “Saved the Last Dance” and “Step Up”. The film was definitely mirroring these US dance flicks as the premise of it all was fairly recognizable.  The story is about a ballerina’s loss of love for dancing because of her structured lifestyle forced upon her from her ballet school. She then searches for a social life and a free life with her brother’s hip hop crew wherein she discovers the passion she had for dance that was just hiding all along. The only difference here is that we have an all Italian cast of hip hop break dancers, ballerinas, and mediocre actors. The site of Italian dancers reflecting American dancing techniques and styles was somewhat comical. Although, I found myself a little taken aback because I could tell these actors were just mirroring what they see in other movies and overall it was just quite a site.

Well aside from “Let’s Dance” depicting similarities with other dance films, it had a film style all of its very own. It was hard to take the film very seriously when there were awkward long takes for moments of upcoming romance backed up by cheesy love music. Then our characters were not really too complex because they pretty much wore all their emotions on their sleeves. I was never uncertain as to what emotion a character was experiencing in a given situation so there was no depth to them. However, the main actress who played the ballerina was the only actor with any dimensions to her character and she served the role well enough. In addition, there were just too many overlapping storylines occurring throughout the film and at random moments too. One character was hoping to win back his ex-girlfriend, the other was hoping to make a basketball team all of a sudden, and then of course the main storyline of the ballerina longing to be happy dancing again. It was all just too much happening and I just found myself wondering why was any of this necessary. Needless to say, it felt that these actors were just reiterating lines from a paper and acting how they felt that they should as oppose to acting how they actually felt. Also, thank goodness for subtitles because if one was to watch this film solely based on the acting alone, one would think that the ballerina was in love with her brother. It just goes to show how body language alone can tell an entirely different story and I’ve taken that observation in heavily when going into other foreign films. Lastly was the awkward transitions from one scene to the next wherein the film would just jump immediately into a next scene while the audience was still processing the prior scene. The jumping scenes made it difficult to adjust to the tone of this film and the fluidity of the film was lost somehow. I could tell that this film wanted to be this great romantic drama meets dance. Sadly it felt more like just drama of an Italian soap opera meets dance and I just accepted it for what it was worth.

Perhaps “Let’s Dance” is comparable to an Italian cannoli because its that tasty, delicious, teasing treat that you know is not good for you, yet you can’t stop eating. The film is that guilty pleasure for a corny cheesy film that you know is not the best thing to see as far as film aesthetics and good quality acting, but you just cannot look away. It was unfortunate to see this film attempting to be something that it is not in regards to the acting and choreography, yet there was still some potential within the actual story itself. A film that on the surface can be seen as silly and naïve, but there are definitely some touching life lessons that were very direct throughout the film. In other words, I never lost the overarching message that this film intended to portray. I never lost that this film was preaching for people to find their passion and reach for what they want no matter what as long as they are happy. It’s a storyline all too familiar with these dance flicks and I must admit that I sat in that theater for all 100 minutes of it because I wanted to see this story unfold from a different country’s perspective.  As a result, it was definitely interesting for me to see how this message is universal and transcendent in films. Although, again these are life lessons that can be evident in many dance flicks, thus it would have been nice to see an original dance film storyline especially from an entirely different country.  I can honestly say that I have a soft spot for “Let’s Dance” because it seems that they made great efforts to make this a great love story and dance film for their home in Italy, but I’m not sure how it would do across the borders.