Swan Lake (1968)

Got it because of Black Swan fever. It's a Russian production. Pretty good although I disagree with the choice of the guy playing Siegfried, they shoulda used the Court Jester guy, instead, as he dances more supple and agile. Was the guy chosen as Siegfried because of his chiselled features? He still looks gay-ish to me, though and he doesn't really dance that well. The costumes are outrageously daring, the White Swan's pubes are visible, the Black Swan has half-exposed breasts. The performances are fab, the White Swan is tender, soft and supple, the Black Swan aggro, terse and passionate. My main gripe with this is trying to make it into a movie, with split screens, dissolves, special effects, superimposition. And the film production is horrible, some out of focus shots, inconsistent lighting, choppy editing and use of different film stock giving different hues and saturation within one movement. They should have shot it as it appeared on stage.

My ratings - as a movie - 5/10. as a performance - 10/10. highly emotional and sexually invigorating. as Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood once said - "ballet is a just a highly stylised form of sex".