Bolshoi ballet film shows world of dance, Kremlin politics

mark on everything,” Alexandrova, who features in the film, said during the interview. “And it’s a complex theatre made up of beautiful, strong, ambitious people with strong characters. We have no other kind here.” In the week before Alexandrova was to perform A Legend of Love, she and the four other lead dancers ran through the full ballet in a rehearsal hall. Their bodies glistened with sweat and their chests heaved from the physical exertion. When a lift or combination was less than perfect, tempers flared.

The film’s director, Nick Read, said it was this exertion and emotion that impressed him the most. Ballet is usually shot from a wide angle, but he decided to move in close to show the dancers at work.

“A lot of the material is there to eulogise their incredible physicality and ability and determination and dedication,” Read said, speaking from London.

In contrast to the dancers, Filin does not come off well in the film.

“He’s a very closed character, a very evasive and ultimately divisive character,” Read said, noting that it was only when filming was in its final stages that Filin agreed to be interviewed. Filin describes managing the ballet company as emotionally trying, thankless and “hellishly hard work.” He ends by saying he regrets ever taking the job.

After the filming was finished, the Bolshoi announced that Filin’s contract will not be renewed when it expires in March. He will be replaced by Makhar Vaziev, who directed the ballet at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg before moving to La Scala in 2009.

Alexandrova said she has great respect for Vaziev.

“To leave sunny, warm Italy, where everything is different — sunny, open and calm — and to choose Russia, where nothing is calm. That’s an extraordinary step,” she commented.