Watching: The White Crow

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The Year of Biopics continues with The White Crow, Ralph Fiennes' film about Rudolf Nureyev's early life and defection to the West. The White Crow merges three distinct timelines: a sepia-tinged rendition of Nureyev's early life in a bleak, snowy Siberia; his time as a student at the Kirov academy in Leningrad, and in particular his relationship with his teaching Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin (played by Fiennes speaking Russian throughout) and his wife Xenia; and his first Western tour in 1961, where he delights in giving his minders the slip to visit the Louvre and spend his evenings with French dancers and socialite Clara Saint. It's a beautifully-done period piece, and I appreciated Fiennes' decision to render all of the dialogue in the original languages, so that English is only used as a lingua franca to allow the Russian and French characters to communicate. Fiennes also chose to cast Ukranian dancer Oleg Ivenko as Nureyev, eliminating the need for a body double for the dance scenes; Ivenko's Nureyev is a very young, rather sulky man, taking full advantage of his star status to enjoy his first taste of freedom and spurred into the decision to defect by the knowledge that if he lets himself be taken back to Russia he will never know that freedom again.

It's an enjoyable film, though the focus on Nureyev's friendship with Saint, as well as a coerced sexual relationship with Xenia Pushkin, compared to an only slightly more than blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene making it clear that his relationship with German dancer Teja Kremke was a sexual one, does feel a bit like straightwashing.