Disturbing yet enthralling

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

First Position was filmed in America in 2011, and follows young ballerinas competing for awards, job contracts and scholarships in the Youth America Grand Prix (an annual competition that awards the best dancers the opportunity to train professionally and pursue a career within the dance industry).Most striking about this documentary is the effort put in by the families, trainers and dancers. Everyone knows that ballet training is difficult and a momentous life commitment, but the film captures all the emotional involvement and strain it puts on family life and the dancers' young bodies, the pressure to make the financial commitment worth it and the effect on their self-worth and pride.Michaela DePrince's story is quite beautiful. Adopted from Sierra Leone after her father was murdered in the civil war, and her mother died of starvation, she arrived in New Jersey, America where she was encouraged to do whatever she wanted – and that was to dance. She tells us her inspiration came from a photo of a ballerina that she found in Sierra Leone and kept, and talks about the prejudice about her race being too muscular and not graceful enough to dance professionally, juxtaposed with the commitment of her parents and their joy stemming from her passion and happiness when she dances. Her final performance is perfectly gracious, despite injury, which makes her fight all the more inspiring.Bess Kargman's film is unfortunately stereotypical and ends predictably happily. A longer focus on Jules, one young dancer quitting due to his heart not being in it as much as his sister Miko, would have given the film a little more depth. The disappointment of his mother is captured, but did this manifest into respect for her son's decision? Was his honesty and bravery eventually acknowledged? The heartache is clear but the emotional connection the audience spends an hour forging with the dancers isn't given opportunity to develop. The technicalities and pressure are the focus, and the positivity evoked at the ending, however lovely, takes away from the reality that most of these young people won't go on to work. The shots of their scabbed, broken, bruised feet are harrowing but merely glimpse at the harsh truth of the daunting career that they have fallen hopelessly in love with. First Position simply lacks grit.

As the credits roll there is a sentence thanking everyone for having faith in a "first time filmmaker." And she did a fine job indeed. Over the past few years I have seen several documentaries featuring school-age kids, one preparing for a high school jazz competition, another for scholarships to cooking schools, plus a few others. What always strikes me is how dedicated these kids are, the antithesis of lost kids roaming the streets, looking to get into mischief.The subject of is film is the 2010 world-wide competition to identify future ballet stars. A few thousand kids compete at semi-final sites around the world, and about the 200 best converge on New York for the finals, where some will get scholarships and some will get hired into a ballet company.Interestingly the IMDb credits don't mention perhaps the best dancer featured, a boy of 11 named Aran. His parents are US military and when he competed they were stationed in Italy.For me the most inspiring story was of Michaela Deprince, who as a young girl in war-torn Sierra Leone witnessed her parents killed during their civil war in the 1990s. She and another girl were adopted by an American couple and grew up with a normal life, and now she is an accomplished and successful ballet dancer. The other that I found greatly interesting is Joan (pronounced 'JOE-nn') Sebastian Zamora, a 16-yr-old boy from Columbia. He seemed mature way beyond his age and is dedicated to his dancing. He was a superb dancer at 16, and was hired by England's Royal Ballet.Overall a fine documentary with just the right emphasis on the semis and the finals, and just the right parceling of time among the featured contestants. Even if a person is not a particular fan of ballet (like me) it is enjoyable for the story being told. We hear too much news of kids getting into trouble, we don't hear enough of the good kids who are dedicated and work hard for what they want.

First Position (2011), directed by Bess Kargman, is an excellent film about young ballet dancers. For reasons I can't understand, as I write this review, the movie carries an IMDb rating of a dismal 6.2. How can that be? Did the viewers who rated it "1" see the same film I saw?The movie follows seven young ballet dancers as they prepare for, and then compete in, the prestigious Grand Prix competition. As pointed out in the movie, many physical activities in which people participate involve natural movements for which the human body is well suited. Catching a baseball, swimming, or climbing a rope are not easy, but our species has the natural physical capabilities to do these things. Ballet dancing, especially en pointe ballet dancing, is not a natural activity for us. We simply are not constructed to (literally) walk on the tips of our toes. The feet have to be trained and remodeled to allow this activity to take place. And, of course, not only do ballet dancers dance on their toes, but when they are doing this they are supposed to make their movements elegant, graceful, and apparently effortless. Although male ballet dancers don't dance en pointe, their movements are also extraordinarily difficult. One young male dancer shows us his "foot stretcher," and tells us, "It hurts a lot."So, serious ballet dancing requires physical traits that are extraordinary, dedication so that ballet becomes central to your life, and the capability to absorb physical pain that would be "cruel and unusual punishment" if it weren't voluntary.Director Kargman has put together a documentary that takes us inside the lives of these young dancers. We meet their coaches, their families, and their judges. Also, of course, we go to the Grand Prix with the dancers, and we learn whether they succeed or fail.I thought the movie was honest, creative, and balanced. These young people are not "regular kids who happen to take ballet." They are dedicated, passionate, and fanatically determined to succeed. First Position brings us into the world of ballet training, and allows us to make our own decisions about the wisdom of encouraging your child to dance and compete at this level. It's a great film. Why does it have such a low rating?

First Position takes a front row in my line up of competition documentaries. It's exceptional because it doesn't overdo its reverence for ballet, nor does it play on a natural sympathy for young competitors from 9 through 19 years old. It would be easy to fawn over youngsters who have only two and a half minutes to persuade judges that they are the best among hundreds of ambitious artists.It keeps the tension of the race to the finals of the Youth America Grand Prix while it invests just the right amount of time with six selected dancers, some of whom fortuitously go to the finals and win, if not the gold , then full scholarships to dance academies, not a bad substitute at all. The camera follows, as is tradition, the endless practices with the demanding coaches, but this time both principals and teachers seem to enjoy the process as much as the awards. There's respectful, low key camaraderie among all the competitors, coaches, and parents that is unusual for these contests and documentaries about them.The range of contestants is the believable, not hyped part I liked so much. While cheerful ten year old Jules Fogarty clearly isn't into dance or the competition, sixteen-year old Joan Sebastian Zamora will earn a top spot at the Grand Prix finals in New York because he cares just enough. Such is the way ambition should work out in the best of all possible worlds.Best of all the dancers, for me, is 11 year old Aran Bell, whose ambition is matched by his awesome talent with a litheness only a dancer years older could have. Michaela, originally from Sierra Leone, is the most surprising talent, given the horrors she has seen and the physical challenges she must overcome.Director Bess Kargman, following six contestants for over a year, does simple magic with director of photography Nick Higgins, sometimes forsaking the competition footage for the more intimately personal, with arguably limited results when the winners are announced as we want to agree with the decisions. More time on stage might have enlisted our cooperation.A case could be made for the superiority of the ballroom dance Mad Hot Ballroom, poetry team Louder Than a Bomb, horse racing's First Saturday in May, or spelling bee Spellbound because they concentrate on the intensity of the actual competition and open up criticism of the contest itself. No such negativity appears here, a weakness for those who would like the reality of disappointment and hurt to extend beyond Michaela's sore foot.But for me, it's nice to be relaxed as we hope these young competitors still are.