Ballet 422

A simple, unpretentious, thorough account of the creation of a new ballet showing the contributions of the personnel involved, choreographer, dancers, musicians, costumers, hairdressers, therapists and ultimately, the audience. Despite the exhortations of politicians and the press, my heroes are not the young people sending drones out to menace peasants in third world countries; my heroes are the young artists depicted here. I could not do this, nor have I ever wanted to do this, but I'm glad someone is doing it.

I'm not a fan of ballet -- I've never been to a ballet. But I'm a huge fan of film. And I'm a documentary nerd. This documentary was perfect. I also have a high-level job in a high- pressure environment, so I was really fascinated by the intensity with which the key players prepared for the big premier. I found myself rewinding this film numerous times to re-watch scenes, because I was mesmerized by their beauty. My wife even came down and asked me, "What are you doing?"

The film does a wonderful job of showing all of the pieces that are necessary for putting together a ballet of the highest caliber. Like anything of excellence, it's hard friggin work, and somebody has to be in charge.

If you like film...and especially if you like ballet...this is a must see. Bravo.

Ever seen a group of middle aged or even older Chinese mama sans doing the group dances in a town square or in a big empty space of a community park with loud music. Those women danced in uniform with lot of gestures of hands and body languages. What made those group Chinese dances so boring and disgusting to watch? Because those women just followed the music to do an uniformed dance without any essence or meaning to show anything else. It's just a group exercise, nothing more.

What we saw in Ballet 422 was exactly like what I've mentioned above. It's just a group exercise dance in uniform but without anything in it. Those dancers just followed the music tempo to move around but in all very poor form, the music itself was also a hollow meaningless mess. The angles of the dancers' hands, arms, legs, bodies were so messy, never in uniform. They were so busy to follow the music tempos to move, run, glide around but always in a messy forms. There's no story in it, no feeling in it, just like those Chinese old women's dances, the New York City Ballet just did a group exercise on stage with a live orchestra and controlled lighting.

The guy who designed this only paid attention to the techniques, the detailed movements of every dancer, and those dancers also danced like pre-programmed robots but never achieved the uniformity that was the most important requirement of a ballet program. The choice of the music was so bad without any meaning or story in it, just lot of notes changed either fast or slow, or faster or slower. I really don't know what's the purpose of asking so many professional dancers to do a totally meaningless ballet program. What I saw in this documentary was like watching a bunch of ballet students tried very hard to follow a meaningless music, practiced and practiced.

The young guy who choreographed this ballet program was a soul-less, feeling-less mechanic but definitely not an artist. After watching this documentary, it also showed that The New York City Ballet is a 3rd grade ballet company, it has so many mechanics, technicians and robotic dancers but with no soul or heart. It should be disbanded long time ago. If you don't know what I've described about the Chinese mama sans dancing, just go to youtube.com and take a look, then you might understand why and how this Ballet 422 was just a hollow mess.

From first rehearsal to world premiere, BALLET 422 takes us backstage at New York City Ballet as Justin Peck, a young up-and-coming choreographer, crafts a new work. BALLET 422 illuminates the process behind the creation of a single ballet within the ongoing cycle of work at one of the world's great ballet companies.

New York City Ballet, under the artistic direction of Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, boasts a roster of more than 90 elite dancers and a repertory of works by many of the greatest choreographers in the history of the art form. When 25-year-old NYCB dancer Justin Peck begins to emerge as a promising young choreographer, he is commissioned to create a new ballet for the Company's 2013 Winter Season. With unprecedented access to an elite world, the film follows Peck as he collaborates with musicians, lighting designers, costume designers and his fellow dancers to create Paz de la Jolla, NYCB's 422nd new ballet. BALLET 422 is an unembellished vérité portrait of a process that has never before been documented at New York City Ballet in its entirety.

Great dancers deserve to be filmed by a competent director and crew. Unfortunately, this did not happen in "Ballet 422."

I have had the good fortune to have seen hundreds of live performances; have watched hundreds more on TV, laserdiscs, and DVD; and have myself filmed over a hundred ballet performances. I therefore know a little about both the art of ballet, and the techniques for recording it.

(P.S., I am also married to a ballet dancer.)

What I have found over the past forty years is that there are no right ways to film a ballet, or a documentary about ballet, but there sure are a lot of wrong ways.

This film seems to be an exercise in finding every possible wrong way to photograph dancers. Here are some examples:

* The camera person seems to have an aversion to feet. Virtually every shot cuts off the dancers' feet and lower torsos, and by tilting the camera to far upwards, gives us vast, pointless shots of the ceiling.

* I don't think I have ever seen an extended dancing scene in which the dancer is shown out of frame, with her arms occasionally appearing in the shot, only to disappear again. I am all for artistic shots, but if you're going to take a chance at doing something different, MAKE IT WORK!! This was just stupid and most definitely did not work.

* Whoever edited this has no sense of continuity. They also don't understand when to begin and end a shot. This movie could be used in an editing class to show exactly what NOT to do when editing.

* The lighting is awful. Yes, I know it is a documentary, and much of it is shot with available light. However, I also know that many of the shots required setup and WERE lit, or at least some attempt was made at lighting.

* The ending shots, where the movies should come together is a completely pointless series of juxtapositions that make absolutely no sense.

I don't think I have ever seen such an incompetent production, and this includes some high school films done by first-year students.

The only reason I give it three stars instead of one is that the solo dancing is absolutely wonderful (although the group dancing is pretty sloppy and lacks coordination).

So, if you do rent this, make sure you have a fast forward that works, and just watch the dancing and skip all the pointless and useless and incompetent footage that adds nothing but bloated, pointless time.

Jody Lee Lipes (the director and main camera person) should not ever again be allowed anywhere near a camera, not even the one in his cellphone.