Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq (2013)

AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ  
    D: Nancy Buirski                                          (2013)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
A documentary on the long life and tragically brief career of Tanaquil Le Clercq, a tall, elegant ballerina whose artistry and breathtaking beauty made her the muse to both George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. A pretty prima donna with a domineering mother, driven to meet impossible demands, sometimes sweet, sometimes cranky, sometimes an emotional wreck: Le Clercq could be the real-life model for "Black Swan". She was just reaching her peak in the mid-1950s, when polio struck her down at 26. She lived to be 71, confined to an iron lung and then a wheelchair. She never danced again. The movie's effective as an appreciation of Le Clercq's significance in the world of classical dance, but as a record of her life, it feels sketchy and unfocused. The archival footage of her dancing is in fuzzy black and white. (In a televised piece choreographed specifically for the March of Dimes, she does a pas de deux with Balanchine himself playing Polio.) That's where the film strikes a chord, and that's where it probably should. The irony is eerie and inescapable. You feel like you're watching a ghost.