In 1999, Maya Plisetskaya, the Russian star of the Bolshoi Theatre, agreed to appear before the cameras of filmmaker Dominique Delouche. A unique opportunity for the prima bellerina assoluta to tell about her person as well her persona from her green years to the age of 73.
Thanks to Delouche and through her keen participation, we spectators are made to follow her through the streets of Moscow where, without or within buildings she lived or worked in, she sheds light on her memories : life as a little girl with her father and her movie actress mother, the trragedy her parents went trhough them as of 1937; her training as a dancer at the Bolshoi school, her long and brilliant international career as a ballerina. In doing so, she hides nothing about Stanilist terrorism, nor about the difficulties she had with the control-freak Soviet regime all along.
Of course, what matters most in rich this documentary is Maya's own articulation of what her style actually is. Admired and copied by many (which both delights and irritates her) we learn that her way of dancing is the mixed product of exceptional gifts, of extreme rigor and of fruitful instinct.. One valuable contribution of the filmmaker, apart from filming his subject with love, consists in illustrating Maya Plisetskaya's words by numerous and well-chosen archives, among which clips from ballets like "Don Quixote", "Romeo and Juliet", and the famous, daring and ultra-complicated "Ravel's Bolero", choreographed by her friend Maurice Béjart. Without forgetting naturally the one which brought Maya Plisetskaya undeniable glory, "Swan Lake". Nobody has indeed forgotten the winglike flapping of her arms gradually changing into the slight frizziness of the water. Maya was, is and will indeed remain Odette forever.
Now that Maya has joined the firmament of vanished stars (she died in 2015 at the age of 89), to see her again so full of life, passion and humour is all the more moving, for which we can only thank Dominique Delouche, who has worked so hard to ensure that the greatest names in 20th century music and dance are documented, seen at work and listened to.
