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LOW_FLAME

"Burning Dreams" (Taiwan, 2003)
Directed by Wayne Peng.

A documentary about a dance
school located in Shanghai
(named "Dreams 52")
that specializes in jazz
and rock dance.

In the opening sequence: A young asian woman in
black, unfolding against the Shanghai skyline,
going into a dance that threatens to become             PUSH_THROUGH
trite, but crosses over into something like a
catalog of standard female dance moves.

The main body of the documentary focuses on the
now elderly man who founded the school.  The
documentary makers present a view point that
suggests that he's some sort of tragic figure, a
man who wanted to be Gene Kelley but just isn't
good enough.

   This idea seems crazy,
   (perhaps a difference in
   Western viewpoints?): This
   man got interested in a
   style of American popular
   dance, and has been
   successfully running a
   dance school and dance
   troupe for decades *in the
   middle of Communist China*.
   Who wouldn't have respect
   for this acheivement?

There's a lot of dance and interview footage of
the students, who are largely cute young asian
girls (this movie is not exactly hard on the
eyes).  They say many of the things that you
might expect them to say, about how they enjoy
dance as an expression of their inner
emotions... then they go back to drilling,
trying to perfect the moves they're being
taught.


But ah, the closing sequence:

It opens with the dance instructor
ranting, angry about the sequence that
they're about to film.  Then one of
the young male dancers comes out, in
tight hot pants and ripped up
shirt. He begins going totally beserk,
attempting to do some sort of
break-dancing spin on his shoulders,
screwing it up and flopping over, then
getting up and trying to do it over
again and again.  Throughout he keeps
screaming "No one can stop me from
being a dancer!" and "I am going to be
an international star!"

Reaction shots of the other students show them
totally shocked by this intense display of
frustration.  One of them is crying.

  The dancer gets increasingly frantic,
  he's clearly physically exhausted.
  Finally his friend comes out and            I happened to see this movie
  gently interrupts him, getting him to       with a professional dancer.
  stop before he kills himself.
                                              She couldn't stop laughing.

       jazz/rock goes                            (Her take is that this guy
       punk... a *true*                          has gotten the wrong way
       display of inner                          of doing it embedded in
       emotions.                                 himself.  There's a need
                                                 to back off when you're
                                                 getting frustrated, to
                                                 think about something else.)

          low flames, deep flames



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