The White Crow

For "The White Crow," his third time behind the camera, the two-time Academy Award nominated actor Ralph Fiennes has tackled the story of the defection to the West of Rudolph Nureyev, a Russian who was one of the greatest dancers of all time. With a script by two-time Academy Award nominated writer David Hare, this lengthy biopic is the story of how a difficult but talented genius chose freedom over being controlled by the Soviet Authorities.

Fiennes successfully gambled in casting the Ukrainian dancer Oleg Ivenko as his star, even though Ivenko had never acted before. Not only does he have an uncanny likeness to Nureyev, but he adds an authenticity to all the dance sequences, which are, mostly, the best parts of the film.

We see Nureyev as a very young student being accepted into the Leonard Conservatory – and we also see the first flashes of his fiery temper. For a young boy brought up in near poverty in small country town, he shows a great deal of arrogance and disdain for authority, he succeeds in demanding a change in tutor so that he can work with Leonard Pushkin (Ralph Fiennes). Pushkin is a reserved soul who rarely shares his feelings, unlike his younger wife Xenia (Chulpan Khamatova), who takes in Nureyev when he has broken his leg and seduces him whilst nursing him back to health.

Nureyev seems constantly angry with the world, though we never learn why. When he is part of the Kirov Ballet Company, he so irritates the bosses that they would prefer to leave him out when they undertake their first European Tour since the ending of WWII. However, it is more important to the powers that be that the Kirov be seen as the world's best ballet company, and that means they have no choice but to include the temperamental young dancer. All the same, they try to keep him in line by denying him the lead role on opening night in Paris, when all the critics will be there.

Nureyev's sexuality is only touched on lightly when we see him in bed with Teja (Louis Hofmann), a German member of the company. There is, however, no hint of the passion we know that he had for men, and it seems like he is more interested in the one dalliance we see as an opportunity to improve his English.

Nureyev takes to Paris like a duck to water, leaving the hotel at the crack of dawn to visit places like the Louvre in order to soak up as much culture as possible. At a reception given by their French hosts, whilst the company holds back due to having been forbidden to talk to foreigners, Nureyev breaks ranks and befriends the choreographer Pierre Lacotte (Rapha�l Personnaz).

Lacotte, in turn, introduces the Russian to his own circle of close friends, including Clara Saint (Ad�le Exarchopoulos), a Chilean heiress and socialite. They are all attracted to him for his exceptional talent and seem to adore him, even though he lacks all the social graces that one expects from a close friendship. Despite his indifference and outright rudeness, they turn out to be the ones who save him when he has to deal with the Russian authorities finally deciding to curtail his freedom.

The film steps up a notch or two when, after a rather languid pace, we finally arrive at the excitement and exhilaration of the Airport scenes in which Nureyev decides to ask for political asylum. Back home in Russia, though, Pushkin declares to the authorities that the reason was never political; it was just Nureyev's way of ensuring he could always dance.

The cast includes Sergei Polunin, the current bad boy of ballet, but this movie belongs to Ivanko for his wonderful performance at Nureyev. The script doesn't allow him a chance to reveal much of the inner man, but he shines as the sacred monster on the outside that Fiennes/Hare seems almost infatuated with.