Romeo and Juliet: Beyond Words

The current generation of Royal Ballet dancers in the UK bring fresh life to Kenneth MacMillan's choreography for his ballet Romeo and Juliet (created in the 1960s), which has been filmed away from the confines of the stage. The leads William Bracewell as Romeo and Francesca Hayward as Juliet are outstanding. I cannot recommend this new, more realistic interpretation of the ballet more highly than by saying it is the perfect one to be seen in 2020. Congratulations to all involved in bringing this version to the screen.

We are used to seeing ballet on the stage, even when made into a movie, but this was ballet as we have never seen in before. The inspiration was the Zefferelli film with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, and used outdoor location as well as some staging, but this technique of doing ballet in the open is groundbreaking. The only criticism I have is not being able to see the dances legs at all times, which is key to filming ballet--that is what lovers of ballet want, first and foremost, it is what we go to ballet to see! And it can be done--just make sure of what the camera sees at all times!

Francesca Hayward's Juliet is absolutely beautiful. She's adapted the role from the stage production to the big screen in a way that other ballerinas with more years behind them would struggle to do. All of the RB's dancers did very well in a heritage piece for the company and should be proud.

However:

All of the shots are really badly blocked and framed. People in the courtyard and Capulet ball scenes were consistently walking in front of the camera and across the shot, with the iconic balcony & bedroom pas de deuxs being obstructed by plants and curtains. Not to mention the fountain directly in the middle of one of the courtyard scenes that was shown about 20 times for no particular reason. In a regular film, this would be bad, but with dancers it works even less due to their lower bodies being constantly cut off. The genius subtleties of Kenneth Macmillan's choreography (e.g., Juliet's bourrées around the Nurse in the scene where she first meets Paris that are echoed just before she decides to drink poison) are lost imo.

The bad blocking is most evident at the beginning when the Capulet & Montague boys fight. It's hard to describe if you haven't seen the stage production, but onstage it works perfectly and the first sword fight scene leaves you in awe - but since basic rules of cinematography aren't followed throughout, the scene becomes cramped and messy so you have no sense of anybody's location. What's supposed to be a peak moment of the ballet seems confusing and small-scale when it should be grandiose. It's a similar problem with the Capulet ball scene.

I understand why this filming style was chosen. R&J Beyond Words is meant to look realistic. Unfortunately, it hinders the choreography and just comes off more peeping Tom.

I hope that Balletboyz continue to make more ballets into films. R&J was a solid attempt that still works because the combo of talented dancers and classic stories can't really fail. I think film cinematographers and people that specialise in translating choreography to film are needed.

Romeo And Juliet: Beyond Words (Ballet) (2019) -

At the beginning, apart from the lovely legs and bums in tights, which I enjoyed greatly, I wasn't sure what to make of this film in its slightly less traditional dance format, although I did know that there was a balletic version available.

I had recently watched Baz Luhrmann's 'William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet' (1996) and Josh O'Connor in 'Romeo And Juliet' (2021 TV Movie), both delivering the story in a way that was entertaining and in the case of the latter, quite stunning, but I hadn't been expecting this one to be a ballet, especially not based on the synopsis I had read, which said and I quote "In a language we all understand", leaving me to believe it was going to be delivered in modern English rather than movement.

Moving on from the surprise I found the whole thing incredibly frantic and if I hadn't known the story beforehand, I believed that I would have been completely lost. I actually wasn't entirely sure what was going on despite my recent refresh thanks to Leo and Josh.

The street scenes distracted from the dancing, because there was too much background action taking place to focus on the ballet.

The supporting artists and the cast not in immediate use, were all moving around too prominently and pulling focus from the main cast.

And some of the dances, the group numbers in particular, looked something more likely to be found on an amateur stage than in a professional production.

I felt that I might be watching an outdoor theatre/stage performance in a castle grounds or stately home, by a local am-dram society, because it definitely lacked the lustre of a cinematic film, including the skilled lighting, camera direction and overall direction that it should have had. That might have quietened the visuals to allow the beauty of the dances to shine. The ones that didn't look as amateur that is.

However, the costumes were beautiful and the set seemed apt. A spoken word version touring through the same location would probably have worked very well and the spaces were ample for the dances in the ball scenes and so on.

What I also couldn't get along with though was having seen or rather heard it used for so many other things, I did feel that the "The Apprentice" (2005-) soundtrack (The music for the ballet by Sergei Prokofiev) was a tad alarmist for what it was trying to depict as well. It seemed that it was more like a fight with a wolf than a romantic dance or canoodling.

Honestly, I probably only made it as far as I did, before I turned it off, because of Romeo's (William Bracewell) bottom in those strides, but I just couldn't finish it.

I had already turned off another film that evening, so maybe it just wasn't my night and my mood was off, but even a few days later I can't imagine that this would be something that I might try to watch again.

Unscored as unfinished.

A great way to present a difficult genre. The use of location filming and cinema techniques works brilliantly and brings something genuinely new to the art. I can imagine that some purists may not enjoy it but this is very accessible and may well bring a new audience to ballet who would not normally seek it out.