Dancing Across Borders

I spotted Dancing without Borders in my local library because of its absolutely stunning cover: a graceful yet somehow fierce young man in an impossibly high leap across a lush green canvas with Philip Glass playing on a grand piano in the background. It was too striking to ignore. I had never heard of the film before and watched it with no expectations and absolutely no idea about the characters.

The storyline was very simple. A wealthy US dance patron spots a talented Cambodian dancer in a remote village and finances his ballet training in NYC. A ballet super-star is born. But don't be fooled by the simplicity of the story. Dancing across Borders is a very compelling film from start to finish. I just couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Every little sequence is beautifully shot and perfectly narrated. Simplicity can sometimes be very powerful. Dancing Across Borders is a perfect example of just how powerfully artistic story-telling can transform a seemingly simple story into a complex multi-layered tale of the charmed life of Sokvannara "Sy" Sar

The alien nature of ballet as a dance form to Sy is matched by his unfamiliarity with English as a language and compounded by the culture shock of living alone in the US, without any family and very far away from home. The film documents his journey through this absolutely bewildering maze of unique challenges. It weaves its way through his initial shaky steps in ballet (which were incidentally shot just to video-document his progress during dance lessons and not really meant for this film) and showcases his sheer dedication to the dance and his single-minded determination to be better.

The film has this inherent lyricism about how it presents the story. Cambodian as well as western classical music is used extensively to transition between Cambodia and the US. Ballet music adapted for the piano is always quite amazing and the movie has these piano pieces by the spadefuls. Sy's ballet competition and stage performances are beautifully woven into the film and you can actually see how he gradually gets better at the dance form.

Overall, I recommend this film to everyone with an interest in ballet, photography, classical music, any dance or just story-telling. It's a fine showcase for all of these. It's a documentary but is more watchable and fun than most dramatized works of fiction.

The Cambodian people are still suffering in the wake of the atrocities and inhumanities committed by the Khmer Rouge. An American filmmaker visits Cambodia and watches a folk dance performed by children in an ancient temple where she senses that one boy has "something special". After she leaves the country, she keeps recalling this boy and wonders if his natural talents might translate into ballet skills. She arranges for his travel to the U.S. and an audition.

This is the improbable yet true story of Sy (pronounced SEE), who leaves his native country with no real understanding of ballet, no understanding of what he is to encounter, and no use of the English language.

Dancing Across Borders is a documentary that shows the development of this dancer, who came to ballet so late, and his awakening to the possibilities of his new life. He trains with excellent teachers. He learns the discipline of ballet. And he is exposed to other cultures and the world at large as he travels to competitions.

In the end, Sy feels somewhat displaced--alienated from his family and the Cambodian experience. But he comes to love ballet and feels he is on the right path.

Anne Bass, the woman who discovered him and the director of this film provides a fairly unbiased look at the journey of Sy. The film lets us know that we do not witness all the bumps along the road Sy travels. On a more subtle level, this is a film about the mysterious spark that illuminates some few who are more than technicians, they are truly performers.

Dancing Across Borders is about Sokvannara 'Sy' Sar, a Cambodian boy who is spotted by a woman during her trip to Cambodia. Upon seeing him perform a traditional Cambodian dance, and recognizing the uncultivated talent he possessed, the woman offers Sy the opportunity to come to America and study ballet in New York City. This documentary is about Sy's journey to America and how he not only learned ballet, but came to be an extraordinary professional dancer.

I found this documentary to be very heart-warming. Sy is a very likable guy. The documentary contains countless dance footage of him with interviews with Sy and his teachers interspersed throughout. Considering that Sy had never heard of ballet, he didn't know any English upon his arrival to the U.S., and got a very late start in pursuing a professional career in ballet, his story is quite miraculous. I thought that the subject of this documentary was really interesting and I found myself rather inspired by Sy's story.

My issue with the documentary was that it dragged a bit. The pace seemed a bit too slow to me and many of the interviews were just saying the same thing again and again: how great Sy is. I loved the dance footage though. There were some especially great clips of rehearsal footage. I just felt that Dancing Across Borders could have used a bit more editing. Overall, I liked it though! I give it 6 stars!

Netflix kept telling me I would like this, so I finally watched it (via streaming, also available on DVD), and boy I certainly did!

It's one of the best ballet films I've seen, if not the very best. The documentary follows a gifted young Cambodian boy dancer, Sy, from his (recreated) childhood in Cambodia, where he begged his mother to be able to attend dance classes. She said no, but he snuck off anyway to the school. He was spotted by an American during a performance, and when she went back to the U.S., she couldn't stop thinking about his enormous talent, his charisma, his exquisitely fluid movement and form, and his beauty. Since she knew that dancers in Cambodia have no future at all and that he would quickly become an impoverished fisherman, she approached ballet schools in NY and insisted that they take him on as a student.

The film then follows several years worth of Sy's training, performance, and competition in the U.S. and abroad.

Wonderfully satisfying ballet footage, well presented, and in a variety of styles and locations, within an inspirational story. Backstage highlights as well, at the nations' best ballet companies.

Really the best ballet film I've seen, and highly recommended.