The White Crow (2018) - Fiennes puts real-life ballet master Ivenko in front of his honest and good Nureyev biopic

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+ Best Biopic of the Year + Best Dance Movie of the Year + Best Paris Movie of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year

Star Oleg Ivenko's arms, head and torso stretch out as if in a classical painting on this magnificent poster for Ralph Fienes' The White Crow

Rudolf Nureyev was a precocious outsider from childhood, when he discovered the marvel of ballet. As a young man, he evolved into a master dancer with huge self-confidence but little knack for submitting to the restrictive realities of life in the USSR.

The White Crow is written by David Hare (The Hours (2002)), based on the book Rudolf Nureyev: The Life (2007) by Julie Kavanagh, and directed by Ralph Fiennes (Coriolanus (2011)).
The film skips back and forth in chronology, and the resulting impression isn't so much disjointed as just not parallel to the elegance of the exquisite dancing we witness. The story comes across, anyhow.
And the story of The White Crow, (which is a Russian nickname that Nureyev gets attached to himself from boyhood due to his qualities as sticking out and being 'different'), is one of the need and thirst for freedom, which again proves a compelling conflict here. Nureyev needs freedom to dance and spread his talent to the foreign lands that want to book him and the Soviet company he dances with, but he also thirsts for freedom simply because he is a wild soul, who does not and doesn't want to conform to the dictates of the grey, despicable figures of the Communist regime.
Ballet-lovers should find plenty to like in The White Crow, which stars acting newcomer Oleg Ivenko, a Ukrainian-born, celebrated dancer based in Tatarstan, Russia, who has trained ballet since the age of 5. Fiennes and Hare also stick with plenty of Russian dialog (as well as French and English when it makes sense story-wise), and Ivenko impresses especially in his dancing scenes, in which he is superb. Nureyev is a head-strong character, not always sympathetically so, and I believed in Ivenko in his portrayal.
Nureyev was also likely bisexual, though The White Crow is content to let the matter fly: SPOILER Nureyev sleeps with his possibly impotent teacher (Fiennes also gives a solid performance, speaking convincing Russian) and a beautiful male German ballet student (Louis Hofmann (Land of Mine/Under Sandet (2015))). The film adores the male physique unapologetically throughout, which is only right.
Adèle Exarchopoulos (Pieces of Me/Des Morceaux de Moi (2012)) gives another strong and sensual performance as another friend of Nureyev's, who due to her connection to the French minister of culture is able to help the dancer with his highly-charged defecting to the West: This short but pivotal hour or two in the artist's life is brought to vivid life, as Nureyev realizes that the weary company manager of the KGB has gotten orders to restrain him back to the Soviet Union and possibly end his career; and a high-stakes defection drama plays out in the Paris airport. The life-altering tension is very palpable, and the malign realities of the USSR regime are laid bare on film again.

Related posts:

Ralph Fiennes: 2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - A very very good dream (starring actor) 
Wrath of the Titans (2012) or, Trash of the Titans (co-star)
Skyfall (2012) - Mendes elevates a slickly produced modern Bond to thrilling heights (co-star)
The Reader (2008) or, Guilt, Words and Love (starring actor)
The Constant Gardner (2005) - Meirelles' first-rate third world thriller  (starring actor)
Spider (2002) - Cronenberg takes us to the tormented (and slightly dull) mind of a schizophrenic (starring actor)
The English Patient (1996) - Minghella's oppulent, beautifully produced and shot, but nevertheless boring classic (starring actor)

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 7. 2 mil. $ and counting
= Uncertain - but likely a big flop
[The White Crow premiered 31 August (Telluride Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 127 minutes. Hayden Christensen was first choice to star in the film, but an ankle injury made this impossible. Fiennes did not want to co-star in the film but was pressured to do so to secure financing. Shooting took place in France, Belgrade, Serbia, St. Petersburg, Russia and in Croatia, completed in October 2017. The film opened #29 to a 78k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #19 and in 365 theaters, grossing 1.8 mil. $ (25 % of the gross to date). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets so far are main production country the UK with 1.5 mil. $ (20.8 %) and France with 1.1 mil. $ (15.3 %). The film has one announced market left to open in: Germany on 26 September. If made on a low budget of 5 mil. $, the film still ranks as a big flop. Fiennes does not have his next directing job announced yet. Ivenko also does not have another film lined up and has returned to the stage for now. The White Crow is fresh at 66 % with a 6.37/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The White Crow?

Blue Is the Warmest Colour/La Vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 & 2 (2013) - A love story for the ages

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+ Best French Movie of the Year

The sensual poster for Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue Is the Warmest Colour

Blue Is the Warmest Colour may be the best love-story film to have come out in the 21st century so far. It is a reverberating representation of finding oneself and the first, deep love. Fiercely bodily in its expression, realistic to a T, - containing nearly no music at all, (not that that is a quality in itself, but Blue makes it work for itself), - and truly encapsulating in its near-violent display of love, sexuality and emotion.
It is clear why the film became the probably biggest cinematic sensation of 2013, - and it will certainly find its place in a later, updated version of Film Excess's Best of 2013 list.
The French film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes under Steven Spielberg as jury president, hailing the film with the well put words:
"The film is a great love story that made all of us feel privileged to be a fly on the wall, to see this story of deep love and deep heartbreak evolve from the beginning. The director did not put any constraints on the narrative and we were absolutely spellbound by the amazing performances of the two actresses, and especially the way the director observed his characters and just let the characters breathe."
The film has also been shrouded in clouds of controversy, as crew members and the two lead actresses of the film have denounced the Tunisian-born director Abdellatif Kechiche (Couscous (2007)) for his demanding shoot that was planned to last 2½ but landed on 5 months. An astounding total of 750 hours of dailies were reportedly shot, leaving most everyone physically and emotionally wrought and, as became obvious, bitter at the director.
Leads Léa Seydoux (Inglorious Basterds (2009)) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (I Used to Be Darker (2013)) actually received the highest cinema honor in France, - the Golden Palms of Cannes, - with their director, in an unprecedented move by the jury, but apparently they were still not at ease inside.
Seydoux plays the tougher, older, more experienced and sophisticated Emma, who becomes the lead Adèle's first girlfriend. They experiment sexually in heated, lengthy, explicit sex scenes, - another reason for the film's notoriety. These scenes have been called many negative things, from unrealistic and ridiculous to unnecessary, but I found them refreshing, and sort of interesting. This inclusive approach to sexuality is new to cinema, and I welcome it. Furthermore, because of the film's narration through the hormonally challenged body of the young Adèle, and because this is her first sexual love - and the subject of the film! - I cannot really understand the accusation that those scenes should be unnecessary. They are vital to Blue, as sexuality is vital to a love relationship.
Exarchopoulos' performance as Adèle is nothing short of awe-inspiring, and she possesses her part for every frame of the film. Adèle the character's eyes and face is like an open book; she is unaccomplished in pretense, and for much of the film she is at the complete mercy of her emotions and desires. She eats like a caveman/woman, and the hormonal juices can almost be sensed flowing through her every limb, as she works her way through the film, unaware that she is a fighter for love. Behind her tears, saliva, snot and awful eating habits, she is a very beautiful woman, and Exarchopoulos' performance makes it hard not to fall for the romantically blank page that Adèle is. And all the more her experience hurts.

My favorite scene in the film is SPOILER when Adèle and Emma have fallen in love and give in to each other in a passionate kiss outside under a strong sun; the love in them both seemingly making them firmer; their skin more perfect; a radiation seems to issue from them from their fusion through love. The still photo above is, I believe, from a previous scene leading up to this climax.
The cinematography of Blue by Sofian El Fani (The String (2009)) is perfect. Never Dogme-headache-inducingly shaky, but never still as well; always there is a vibrant life to the observing, matter-of-fact camera. Bravo.
The only reason Blue doesn't receive the masterpiece 6 ♥-status here, is because Kechiche doesn't know when to end his film. Without giving away any of the film's ending, this is where Blue should have ended:

And it would have been an absolutely perfect film.
Instead, Kechiche has another 30 minutes, at least, of 'story', which doesn't bring us much more or much further with our already well-defined image of the two main characters. It's not that the last half our or so isn't well-made, - it is, - it is just that the film would have been stronger had it been cut.
Blue Is the Warmest Colour is based on a 2010 French graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh. Why the film is originally titled La Vie d'Adèle - Chapitres 1 & 2 (The Life of Adèle - Chapters 1 & 2), I don't know. It seems to be the complete story from the novel, its ending and some other things altered some, and there are no explicit chapters noted in the film. Perhaps Kechiche wants to tell more chapters in the life of Adèle in the future?
For my sake, he doesn't have to, and Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a much better title. The blue goes through the film as a symbolic cursor of love, and the title of its 'warmth' seems to comment wryly on the other, often forgotten side of love; the almost inevitable heartache that follows with it.
This is very much the topic of the magnificent, unforgettable Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

Related posts:

Top 10: Best French movies

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI] 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]   

Here's the trailer for the film, and would you then, for the love of God, before it's too late, GO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

Budget: 4 mil. €, equal to approximately 4.32 mil. $
Box office: 19.4 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Blue Is the Warmest Colour?
Any other love story-movies from the 21st century that you think can compete with it?