RAZZLE DAZZLE
Australia, 2007, 95 minutes, Colour.
Kerry Armstrong, Ben Miller, Tara Morice, Nadine Garner, Jane Hill, Barry Crocker, Toni Lamond, Noeline Brown, Leo Sayer, Paul Mercurio.
Directed by Darren Ashton.
What an enjoyable surprise.
Expecting one of those many recent films about dance, dedicated teachers, problem students, sullen heroes who turn out to be champions, competitions and victories (like Step Up, Stomp the Yard, Take the Lead, even Strictly Ballroom), we discover it is, except…
Facts and statistics are given at the opening about how many children take dance lessons and how many enter into annual competitions. Looks like a documentary touch. But it is only a touch because the main style is that of the Mockumentary (especially made popular by Christopher Guest and his troupe in such films as Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind). As such, it is very funny, lots of entertaining spoof, Australian deadpan comic observations (made so popular by Kenny), heightened characters and some extreme situations.
The style is a blend of serious interviews with some hilarious comments, a cinema verite style of wandering around the schools, into the homes, eavesdropping on conversations and, then, the razzle dazzle of the dance competitions themselves.
Ben Miller is very good indeed as Mr Jonathan from England who runs his school quite unconventionally, getting the students to imagine grim and gruesome situations (like the massacre of their pets) to explore and mime their feelings. And his repertoire is based on the world’s social problems (his first choreography was on the Kyoto agreement and his finale is on the Taliban’s oppression of Afghan women and their rebellion for freedom). Jane Hall is Miss Elizabeth, the model of prim, elitist, authoritarian education who refuses to face the possibility of defeat.
But Kerry Armstrong stands out as one of the most oppressive of stage mothers, yet makes her quite credible in her vanity, vulnerability and lack of scruple. Nadine Garner is the more sensible mother who acts as a foil. Toni Lamond and Noelene Brown turn up as judges along with Leo Sayer and Paul Mercurio has some moments as himself, a dance instructor. Tara Morice is the silent costume designer.
The children perform well – although the reaction to these dance schools, performance and competition is to wonder how wise it is to turn most of the dancers into precocious rhythmic-gyrating mini-adults.
Familiar plot but very entertainingly varied – and funny.
1.Popular entertainment? Spoof, mockumentary? Characters and situations?
2.The screenplay: characters and caricature, witty dialogue, deadpan humour, self-deprecating, low-key vanity, the Australian tone and irony?
3.The title, dance, colour, performance?
4.The information about dance in Australia, the number of children in training, in competitions?
5.The mockumentary tradition: the handheld camera, information names and dates, interviews, the reality and verite cinema, editing and intercutting the interviews with the presentation of action? Dances?
6.The structure of the film: the various troupes, the leaders, the rivalry, the history, parents, coming to classes, the children, the girls and the boys, the rehearsals, the heats, performance, accidents, planning, the human element, the finals?
7.Mr Jonathan as the focus? Ben Miller’s performance, articulation of the jokes, the humour, taking himself seriously? His character, his past in England, humiliations, singular in his family, determined, being beaten, the deadpan humour of the also-ran trophies? At school, socials? His methods, the suggestions of cruelty, fear, the death of cats, the children crying, acting out their aggressions? Barbara and her getting the school in financial order? The rivalry with Miss Elizabeth? The parents, Justine and her dominance, Grace’s mother, the fathers? His comments, coming third in the heats, the pushing of Tenille, the boy and his skills in dancing, his being removed? Directing and reshaping the performance, Grace and the audition? Tenille – and her getting central role again, the accident in performance? Winning? The social concerns, the Afghan dance, the embrace with Grace’s mother? The triumph? Entertaining, likable character, quirky?
8.Miss Elizabeth, prim and proper, the children, her treatment of them, despising them, the trophies and taking them? With the parents? Her vanity, the awards, wanting an accident, her put-down of Mr Jonathan, the final performance, losing? Her comment that he had a hollow victory?
9.Justine as the focus, Kerry Armstrong’s performance, as a stage mother, dominating, the father in the background? Her talking about training Tenille from the womb, as a small child, the memories of her own career, lack of opportunities, relationship with her mother? The gift to the judges? Her putting down the others? Her interference, her rehearsals with Tenille, Tenille taking her ideas? Her pique? The boy and her ignoring his performance? The build-up to the final performance, Tenille’s accident, her reaction, the father and his kindness in helping his daughter? Walking away? The finale during the credits, her new pregnancy, her blaming of Tenille? Her fostering the rhythms of the unborn child?
10.Tenille, character, age, becoming more and more like her mother, especially in the rehearsals? Having Paul Mercurio in for personal coaching?
11.Grace and her mother, the father moving out, his friend, their work on TV? The two present at the classes? Grace herself, normal, always late, blaming her mother? Grace not speaking to her mother? The mother and her friendship with Jonathan, his attraction towards her, the auditions, happy with Grace’s performance? The happy embrace at the end – a future?
12.The judges, their manner, speeches, explanations of the competition? Their criteria? The two women? One enthusiastic, the other not applauding? Leo Sayer as a judge?
13.The rival school, the head of it and her comment on the rules, the breaking of the rules and her writing letters of protest?
14.The men in the background, the parents, the gay couple, television?
15.Tara Morice as the designer of the costumes, their eccentricity, the girl suffocating, the designer fainting? Her silence, observation, her eccentricities, singing ‘Gold’ and enjoying it? Her enthusiasm – and the design of the costumes and the sets for the final piece?
16.Barbara, her character, her self-understanding, fostering all the children, returning them after four weeks if they couldn’t dance, the director of the institute and his exasperation, his ordering her out? Her resentment about the rules? Her abduction of the young boy, pride in him? His being taken back? Her criminal behaviour?
17.The final performance, the social concern? Mr Jonathan and the comments about all the world issues and putting them into dance? The performance by the children, the songs, the Australian artists singing, making the children little adults in their precocious style of dancing, the sexiness? Ambitions? Razzle dazzle?
