Justin Peck
“BALLET 422” My rating: C+
75 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
Hard-core dance fans may take some pleasure in “Ballet 422,” a documentary about the making of a new piece.
The rest of us will be underwhelmed.
The subject of Jody Lee Lipes’ film is promising. A couple of years ago Justin Peck, 25, a dancer with the New York City Ballet, was given the opportunity to choreograph a new work for the company. A member of the corps de ballet, Peck was less a star than a grunt, but he had shown such promise at a choreographing workshop that he caught a big break.
“Ballet 422” looks at the creation of “Paz de La Jolla” set to Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu’s 1950 “Sinfonetta La Jolla.”
There’s built-in drama here. Why did Peck choose this particular piece of music? How did he conceive it as a sort of beach frolic for young men and women? Does he feel the pressure of having to deliver? What about finding himself suddenly elevated from a position of obscurity to one of dictating to his fellow dancers — including those who outrank him? How does he negotiate the inevitable ego clashes?
Unfortunately, none of these questions are answered by the film. Lipes takes a cinema verite approach, which is to say that she allows her camera to record the proceedings with virtually no editorial intrusion on her part.
More’s the pity. A series of sit-down interviews with Peck would most certainly have provided a harvest of insight, not only into the process but into this talented young man’s personality — which seems totally missing from “Ballet 422.” We follow Peck going to and from work on the subway, but he’s not a particularly demonstrative individual and we get precious little in the way of what makes him tick.
We don’t even get to see the full ballet when it debuts.
The film has been nicely shot and provides some illumination regarding how a new dance piece is rehearsed and designed by a crack team of lighting and costume specialists.
But mostly it feels uninhabited.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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