‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ : Film
A Review
The big car roars in through the open gate, kicking up dust on the rough, unpaved road. Children run behind the car, shouting and gesticulating: they have never seen a car this close before. The car comes to a stop in front of the community centre. Fireworks go off and tinny percussion instruments and drums sound. A hero was returning to the small Shandong province and the entire village had come to welcome him.
His proud parents smile and clap and blush and an old man with an austere face stands smiling. “Teacher Chan,” says the hero going to him. “I wish I could have seen you dance,” says the teacher, with a wistful smile.
And right there, in the heat and the dust, among the simple, awed village folk, the student, one of the greatest ballet dancers of all time, renders a rousing performance for the sake of his teacher.
It was so simple, so elegant, so full of beauty that I couldn’t stop weeping for a long, long time.
It was the last scene of ‘Mao’s Last Dancer.’
Mao’s Last Dancer is a 2009 Australian film. It is based on the memoir, of the same name, written by Chinese-Australian author, Li Cunxin, which was first published in 2003. Directed by the Academy award nominated director, Bruce Beresford, it is an inspirational film. The main lead is played by Chi Cao, Principal Dancer, Birmingham Royal Ballet. His teenage version is played by Australian Ballet Dancer Chengwu Guo. The film also stars Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan, Joan Chen, Amanda Schull, and Camilla Vergotis.
Between the 60s and the 70s, in the era of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Li Cunxin, a 11-year old Chinese boy is picked up for ballet and dance training by government officials. Li lives in a rural commune in Shandong Province and is the youngest member of a very large family.
Grit and determination, and the hope that he would be able to pull his family out of poverty makes him endure pain, hardship, and verbal abuse. He is the only person in the selected batch, who is forwarded to a Beijing audition for a place in Madame Mao’s Dance Academy. Based on a series of physique and flexibility examinations, he is admitted for ballet training.
He ascends from there, and never looked back. There was heartbreak and disillusionment, idols falling from pedestals and shown to have clay feet, nostalgia, and dejection. But the show goes on. So did the showman.
The film holds a mirror to the clash of value systems and entrenched values. Nowhere did I see it holding either Western or Eastern values as superior or inferior. It celebrates differences in a gentle uncensorious manner that was, paradoxically, both soulful and stark. Bits of it, given the context and milieu, were reduced to the formulaic: but overall, it left one with glimpses of the extraordinary resilience and unconditional friendships.
But what takes the cake, for me, more than story and substance were the music and the dance.
The haunting elegance of Chinese music and the soundtrack were composed by Australian composer, Christopher Gordon. The score utilised the standard Western orchestra with the addition of a number of Chinese musical instruments. It won the Best Original Music Score prize at the 2009 AFI Awards, as well as the Best Feature score and Best Soundtrack Album at the Screen Music Awards, in Melbourne.
And the dances? What do I say of them? A complete mastery of movement and music, body and ballet, is nothing less than perfection. I don’t know enough about these to explain or elucidate anymore: but when you watch the movie, it will hit you, too, as it did, me.
The movie brings home the fact that music and dance are universal languages. It conveys the message, in the immortal words of James Kirkup, that
Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours:
If music moves you and dance delights, simplicity soothes you, and elegance excites, do watch the movie. You won’t regret it.
