Nutcracker: The Motion Picture

Having performed multiple parts in about a dozen different Nutcrackers with various companies over the course of 18 years, my Nutcracker knowledge and experience is vast. If you are a fan of ballet, I offer this review.The original production in 1892 was criticized for having a male character (Drosselmeier) with a weird pedophilic obsession with a young girl (Clara). Throughout this production… they clearly tried to convey this. The two people who portrayed Clara (yes, two) often gave facial expressions and body language indicating fear, annoyance, or distaste for the Drosselmeier character while he leered at her. Then he appears in the second act dreamland as a sultan-esque character who fights her Nutcracker for her love and repeatedly loses, though it appears he’s trying to win her affection by offering entertainment.Do yourself a favor and skip the first 11 minutes. Very little dancing and the story is just confusing.Party scene: not particularly colorful and some of the camera angels cut off more than half the stage. Way too many close up shots. I get that the point is to follow Clara as the main character but cutting off the bulk of the action just makes it hard to understand what’s happening. Better story and watchability comes from viewing the pantomime on a large stage. There’s a weird pas de trois thrown into the party scene that isn’t part of the original score and doesn’t make sense nor does it add to the story. Clara’s Nutcracker seems to fall out of her Christmas tree like an ornament or decoration that comes loose; in every other production I’m familiar with, the Nutcracker is a gift.Fight scene: it’s unclear why the rat king grows an extra head every few minutes and then the quality of the heads changes back and forth. It’s also unclear why Clara’s shoe, which is supposed him knock him out, explodes in one of his three faces. But the toy soldiers were fantastically costumed and executed well.To get to the snow scene I’m not sure why she had to crawl into the rat king’s discarded robes but in doing so she turns from a girl into a woman (that’s right, because apparently she needs to be an adult to have this dream). This is also when/how the Nutcracker changes from wooden to human and princely. The snow scene as a whole was really exceptional. Stupendous musicality, choreographed really well, and the camera angels improved here over the party scene.Second act:-Clara dances the sugar plum… why? As in, there is no sugar plum fairy… it’s just Clara while two men (the Nutcracker and Drosselmeier-sultan) act like they are going to fight for her.-Spanish music was used for a dance that crossed between Russian and Arabian.-Arabian music was used for a peacock dance which was surprisingly lovely albeit a little silly.-Chinese music was used for a tiger dance but the tiger looked like a troll with a weird hat.Russian trepak music was used for something middle eastern.-French music had a trio of masked dancers who pantomimed a nice, comedic piece reminiscent of cirque de soleil clowns.-The mother ginger music… was used to have the sultan version of Drosselmeier open his pants at the waist to display a screen upon which a group of boys and girls danced around. The closing of that screen turned into the opening of waltz of the flowers, during which the rotten camera angels happen again and again so there are large portions of the dance that you can’t even see.-The infamous second act pas de deux that is usually performed by the sugar plum fairy and her cavalier is done here by Clara and the Nutcracker. Afterwards the various second act characters wave goodbye to Clara and the Nutcracker as they fly away. Except then the flying turns to falling and as they fall the nutcracker changes back to his wooden form and child Clara wakes up.Overall, as critical as this review is, I actually like this much more than the Balanchine version. More musicality, better choreography (when the videography lets you see it anyway). The story is a little strange and uncomfortable at parts but this wasn’t a bad way to spend an evening.

And by children I mean preteen girls thirteen years or younger, and boys five years old and younger. Boys older than that probably won't take a liking to it, having sports, cars, guns and action stuff on their minds.As a middle aged man I felt a little strange watching this thing, but I took a chance on it because I had seen it when I was younger. And where I think this production is well shot as per Caroll Ballard's usual exceptional film making styles, there are elements in it that just don't gybe very well with the production itself.First off the Cossack dancers, for some strange inexplicable reason, do not do traditional Russian Cossack dancing. Instead we're given three olive skinned dancers dressed as perhaps Persian slaves with gilded galley harnesses who perform some kind of interpretive ballet number that has absolutely nothing to do with Russian Cossack culture.Then there's the girl's "slipper moment". In the original ballet the young girl is supposed to run up behind the mouse king and whack him with her slipper, at which point he falls unconscious, whereby victor goes to the nutcracker and his troops. But in this version the young ballerina hurls a slipper-fragmentation-grenade replete with feminine purple sparkles and glitter as it impacts a giant three-headed rat. Interesting.And then there're the process shots, or SFX shots where we see the young ballerina and her prince fly off into the clouds, which looks unbelievable fake. Equally the burning in of the image of the stage microcosm as the the toy maker slumbers next to his toy castle creation. Both of these look rather ham-fisted. Odd since one of Caroll Ballard's OTHER claims to fame is doing second unit work for the original Star Wars.The dance numbers are not well staged, in my opinion. They seem rather jumbled and unregimented compared to all the other productions of this piece I've seen in years past.The sets are well crafted, the costumes surpassing, and even the acting from the dancers is more than just passable and functional, but quite adequate and appropriate for the film. And probably the most impressive aspect is the lighting to give it a staged yet also ethereal feel, as if we the audience are there as an audience watching with an omniscient camera. Truly the lighting here is not overy dramatic, is very soft and inviting (for the most part), and doesn't present us with a "stage like" arena that is so often the case with other stage performances caught on film and video. Here it's very natural and very dream like all at once. A real plus, because it accentuates the very colorful costumes and performances.And there's of course Tchaikovsky's music, and if you have a complaint about that (and I certainly don't), well, you shouldn't be watching this thing in the first place.So, do I recommend it? Again, pre-teen girls and younger, their mothers, and boys before they hit their cowboy / army dude period circa age four or five, should enjoy it. Pre-teen boys won't. Teenagers as a whole might tolerate it as art. And adults, well, I've already expressed my opinion here.If you want to introduce your kid to classical music and dance, then this film might be the way to go. Overall, even though I picked it apart, it's still an outstanding film, but has a few flaws that I wish had been addressed before and during shooting.Just me. Give it a shot.

Bought this for my grandaughters at Christmas. They loved it and so did Mum! My daughter in law said the girls (age 6 and 4) were mesmerised and watched the whole thing. "It's like you are at the theatre".

I watched the end of the bolshoi ballets Nutcracker with maximova and vasilli which was brilliant. In this version the costumes, choreography and dancing don't compare. In ballet go for Bolshoi I

Xmas present

This is the most unsatisfactory item I have ever purchased from Amazon. I bought it for my 5 year old granddaughter as she is appearing in the ballet next week, but thank goodness I watched it first as I found it really creepy and certainly won't be showing it to her.

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