FROM VOGUING IN THE FAVOURITE TO THE UNRHYTHMIC LEAPS IN POOR THINGS, DIRECTOR YORGOS LANTHIMOS’ DANCE SEQUENCES CONSTANTLY REFLECT THE THEME OF REBELLION AGAINST RULES AND RESTRICTIONS.
Yorgos Lanthimos knows how to represent women and men without filters or restraints. With Poor Things we find ourselves dealing not only with Emma Stone in the best role of her career, but also with a sensational vision of aesthetics, without touching on the baroque or excess alternating with an expressionistic black and white. As Bella takes her first steps in the world, she discovers many of the wonders that life has to offer her (in addition to pastels and communism), which she grasps with extreme voracity, ignoring what conscience and cynicism are. All this, of course, depends on the fact that Bella is not a woman like the others, since she has the brain of her unborn child transplanted into her head (a sort of modern female Frankenstein).
“I’ve never lived outside of God’s house” she explains in her chat with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), the high-rolling gambler who whisked her away on a luxury ocean liner. “So Bella has a lot to discover.” Moments later, Bella discovers the joy of dancing, with the ship’s band playing grotesque drums (fun fact: the film’s composer Jerskin Fendrix makes a cameo appearance in the center of the orchestra). As the wealthy couples around her twirl in stagnant waltzes, Bella jumps and shakes in excitement. Even Wedderburn’s attempts to lead her into a more traditional dance are met with resistance: she turns the tables, continually wriggling out of his grasp as he tries to hold her back. It’s a beautiful metaphor for their relationship, which becomes untenable when Bella’s lust for life outweighs her interest in the handsome but vainglorious Wedderburn.
There’s no surprise that Lanthimos has consistently shown an interest in movement, considering his career began in the 1990s, creating videos for dance theater companies and music videos in his native Greece. While Lanthimos cites these experiences primarily as a way to gain the technical expertise that would later lead to feature filmmaking, his interest in how physicality reflects a character’s personality has been evident since his 2009 hit film Dogtooth.
Here, a husband and wife keep their children from the outside world until adulthood, forcing them to live entirely under their father’s strict rules. The siblings (credited as Eldest Daughter, Younger Daughter, and Son) have little understanding of what goes on outside their family home, at least until Eldest Daughter is able to barter a sexual favor in exchange for some videotapes from her father’s colleague. These videotapes show Eldest Daughter that the outside world appears to be very different from how their father describes it. During a dance recital with her Younger Sister for their parents' wedding anniversary, the Eldest Daughter performs a choreography from Flashdance (a film about a woman trying to find liberation in a man's world), accompanied by her brother, who plays a grim-faced guitar piece.
Although both represent turning points in the liberation of their young female protagonists, the dance scenes in Dogtooth and Poor Things differ dramatically in their staging. In Dogtooth, the camera remains static and we watch the Eldest Daughter dance from the perspective of her parents. Although her mother and father initially appear inscrutable, as the dance continues, they become increasingly horrified, with the former eventually stepping in to stop her. In Poor Things, however, Bella is the focal point of the frame; the dance is free, cheerful, carefree, and does not offer a point of view from the viewer or from Wedderburn himself.
“In movies’ Lanthimos, the dance scenes are there to give us a sense of the characters’ perspectives and how they relate to the world,” choreographer Constanza Macras explained in a recent interview with Slate. “A lot of them use dance scenes as pure decoration.” Macras previously worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite, a film set in 18th-century England.
The protagonist here is Queen Anne, a woman with poor health and a temperamental temper. Easily flattered and sensitive to the pleasures of the flesh, she is heavily influenced by those closest to her, including in international politics. And her main influence is Lady Sarah, a cunning noblewoman with an iron character and a very specific political agenda: to continue the ongoing war against France, even if it means doubling the taxes on the kingdom’s subjects. Lady Sarah’s closest rival is the ambitious politician Robert Harley, who will do anything to curry favor with the Queen. But he will not be the one to challenge Lady Sarah for the role of Favourite: Abigail Masham, a distant relative of Lady Sarah, arrives at court, much lower in the English caste system. The film also features a dance scene, in which the devious Lady Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Samuel Masham engage in a lavish courtly display in front of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman).
The dancing here features lifts, squats and voguing, characteristics that clash with the period costumes and setting, adding to the film’s bold list of playful anachronisms, but which (similarly to Poor Things) contribute to its visual narrative. Queen Anne, who uses a wheelchair and cannot participate in the dances, is at first sulky and then enraged by Lady Sarah’s performance.
Olivia Colman can also be found in The Lobster (2015), singing Gene Pitney’s “Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart” at a hotel where a group of guests are forced to find a romantic partner or be transformed into an animal of their choice—in the case of protagonist David (played by Colin Farrell), a lobster. The way the couples sway awkwardly seems more akin to a high school dance than anything else; but by the time David escapes the hotel and joins the band of loners living in the woods, the dances of these “free people” are silent but performed with reckless abandon. Human connection happens through uninhibited movement: it is here that David first sees the nearsighted woman who becomes his love interest (also played by Rachel Weisz). Later the couple slow dance together, alone in the woods, as part of a "synching" activity, listening to Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's The Wild Rose on their CD players – a song choice that ultimately foreshadows the tragic nature of their relationship.
Lanthimos' films raise deeply philosophical questions about freedom, intimacy, solitude and social control. But these questions are not handled in an abstract or theoretical way. Rather, they are represented by the physical movements, behaviors and gestures of his characters. It is no coincidence that I would finally like to point out that already in the trailer of Lanthimos' latest film, Kinds of Kindness, we can find a dance scene of the dear Emma Stone, a few frames already imprinted in the Internet imagination, who dances to the notes of Brand New Bitch by Cobrah.
by FRANCESCO SARCINELLA
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