DANCING ACROSS BORDERS
Directed by Anne Bass
Produced by Bass & Catherine Tatge
Released by First Run Features
USA. 88 min. Not Rated
Special Features: Bonus Performance by Sokvannara Sar Mopey (Pacific Northwest Ballet, 2009). Performances from the film: Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux; Square Dance; Coppelia; La Sylphide; La Sonnamubula; On the Other Side. Director interview. Photo gallery.
 

Dancing Across Borders, novice director Anne Bass’s documentary about Cambodian dancer Sokvannara “Sy” Sar, isn’t memorable filmmaking by any stretch of the imagination. But Bass has chosen such an inspiring subject that her film can’t help but register as an observant exploration of an up-and-coming artist and his chosen form of expression.

Bass, a leading dance advocate in this country—she’s been on the Board of Directors of New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet (SAB), among other prestigious institutions—was so taken with Sar’s dancing while on a visit to the legendary Angkor Wat in 2000 that she became his patron, sponsoring his move to the U.S. from Cambodia to audition for SAB.

Dancing Across Borders downplays, without completely minimizing, the difficulties the teenaged Sar had in adjusting to a new culture and language. Instead, it shows how, for all his natural talent, Sar wasn’t an overnight sensation—he was with SAB for five years before dancing with a ballet company in Seattle. We hear applause for his style and grace by SAB faculty, but also concern that his technique, developed through years of studying and performing traditional Khmer dance, would not enable him to master classical ballet.

Bass’s own technique is simple but, in this context, effective. She opens and closes her film with contemplative shots of the serene beauty of Sar’s homeland, and his own engaging personality comes so alive onscreen that Bass smartly films him performing or just talking, with added contextual comments from family and colleagues back in Cambodia or here in the U.S. Showing his long and winding road to developing his own dance style, the film reaches an emotional and artistic peak when Sar returns to Cambodia to perform for those who first believed in his talent.

Sar’s graceful dancing can be seen in several sequences, including one of him performing to Philip Glass piano works played by the composer himself. Additional dance sequences are included as DVD bonus features, along with a three-part interview of Bass explaining how she first met Sar and ended up making her first film about him.

Although the film seems incomplete (Sar is still at the beginning of what may become a long and fruitful career), Dancing Across Borders is still an invaluable chronicle of one young man’s artistic journey. Kevin Filipski
December 17, 2010