We are going to Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote - 50th anniversary, re-mastered, restored and re-orchestrated. Evidently widely acclaimed as the best dance film in existence, but a complete novelty for my SO and me and one that we selected for that reason. I have no idea what I will make of it.
At home, we will quite possibly watch Guardians of the Galaxy vol 3, since my SO has a soft spot for Rocket, or You Hurt My Feelings, which sounds interesting.
Oh very nice. That’s one I have never seen. GoG3 is a fun watch. And has some neat photography (or whatever you’d call it in this digital age). Interesting set pieces. The Rocket story line is pretty brutal though. Fair warning.
Yes - the Nureyev Don Qixote was pretty impressive really. Excellent set design and choreography and costumes etc and the dance really was effortlessly athletic and so on. I am a little puzzled about why Don Quixote was ever chosen as the subject for the ballet in the first place though - the plot (insofar as any ballet has a complex plot at all) was only tangentially connected to the original story, and could have been just as connected to a dozen other stories. I don’t know what the re-orchestration actually involved but to my mind there were some odd choices that left certain scenes a little isolated by silence between particular musical sections.
Otherwise, we went with You Hurt My Feelings which was pretty much what I was hoping. Very much in the tradition of Woody Allen movies: the same milieu and a lot of vaguely similar dialogue and humour - although it was a fairly low-key humour overall, and definitely not a laugh out loud comedy. Well observed characters and some realistic exploration of territory around support and truth and what should and shouldn’t be expressed in relationships. It prompted some meaningful discussion afterwards - which is exactly what I am looking for with this kind of film. Not a standout movie by any definition, but it certainly did what it was aiming to do.
Don Qixote, is an obsession of so many creative minds. I can’t say that I really understand why so much. But there is an irony to it as well. It seems no one has every been able to do a proper job of adapting that story to other mediums and some have driven themselves mad trying. The projects themselves often end up like Qixotes windmills. A dragon they never manage to slay.
You have me curious about You Hurt My Feelings now! I will have to check it out. I love when we can spawn a conversation from a film. I don’t know that it is showing near me, but we’ll check it out if so.
Add comment