Life is a dance competition They shoot horses, don't they?
Set in the 1930's, years of the depression, the Great War behind them and another to come, we find a whole generation that is trying to cope with a raw and harsh reality. The message this movie conveys is the same as the cold, pathetic and pessimistic view of life that the existentialist movements being born were spreading around.
We all wanted to know who would win. We were unsure who to root for —certainly not Jane Fonda's apathetic character. Then who? The washed out wannabe and talentless actress or her egocentric partner; the married couple that blind themselves with some sort of a possible "lived happily ever after" ending? No. None of them could win. All the characters are selfish and blind to reality with hopes of winning something that is ephemeral. Inside the dance floor they are stripped naked of their dignity and humanity. The only character who seems free of this heaviness turns out to be the worst of them, encarnating those that permit others to give up.
Mr. Pollack very effectively introduces us into a world where life is an unending dance marathon. The struggle in life, like the struggle to keep dancing, is meaningless and empty; a mere movement that seems to go on and on until it crashes to an end. Contestants begin the challenge enthusiastically and motivated because they have a goal, a purpose. But we shockingly discover that people compete, not against each other as initially believed, but with the inevitable pull of gravity to the floor. This is why we're not really surprised at Gloria when she decides to shoot herself once she's outside. Loosing the competition is, in fact, death, and death is more reasonable, more real than "dancing away" through life. Death is the only certainty. Those who don't die dancing will die anyway, despite any resistance.
In the end they were all cattle, lining up to be fattened before being slaughtered: an existence void of any meaning. A movie worth watching thanks to Mr. Pollack's brilliant directing and real, sober and contained performances, all committed to the point the movie wants to make. 7/10
Set in the 1930's, years of the depression, the Great War behind them and another to come, we find a whole generation that is trying to cope with a raw and harsh reality. The message this movie conveys is the same as the cold, pathetic and pessimistic view of life that the existentialist movements being born were spreading around.
We all wanted to know who would win. We were unsure who to root for —certainly not Jane Fonda's apathetic character. Then who? The washed out wannabe and talentless actress or her egocentric partner; the married couple that blind themselves with some sort of a possible "lived happily ever after" ending? No. None of them could win. All the characters are selfish and blind to reality with hopes of winning something that is ephemeral. Inside the dance floor they are stripped naked of their dignity and humanity. The only character who seems free of this heaviness turns out to be the worst of them, encarnating those that permit others to give up.
Mr. Pollack very effectively introduces us into a world where life is an unending dance marathon. The struggle in life, like the struggle to keep dancing, is meaningless and empty; a mere movement that seems to go on and on until it crashes to an end. Contestants begin the challenge enthusiastically and motivated because they have a goal, a purpose. But we shockingly discover that people compete, not against each other as initially believed, but with the inevitable pull of gravity to the floor. This is why we're not really surprised at Gloria when she decides to shoot herself once she's outside. Loosing the competition is, in fact, death, and death is more reasonable, more real than "dancing away" through life. Death is the only certainty. Those who don't die dancing will die anyway, despite any resistance.
In the end they were all cattle, lining up to be fattened before being slaughtered: an existence void of any meaning. A movie worth watching thanks to Mr. Pollack's brilliant directing and real, sober and contained performances, all committed to the point the movie wants to make. 7/10