Bol­shoi Babylon

The Bol­shoi Bal­let is a byword for con­sum­mate artistry and a world leader in clas­si­cal dance. Behind the red vel­vet cur­tain is enough cor­rup­tion, fierce rival­ries and even vio­lence to rival any palace intrigue. A mere 500 metres from the Krem­lin, we find the Bol­shoi on the verge of melt­down in Nick Read and Mark Franchetti’s documentary.

A hint that all wasn’t well in par­adise sur­faced when a masked man threw acid in artis­tic direc­tor Sergei Filin’s face. It emerged that the assailant was paid by a prin­ci­ple male dancer, angry at Fil­in for over­look­ing his girlfriend’s abil­i­ties, the inci­dent was chalked up as a case of revenge. Yet the inves­ti­ga­tion opened a win­dow on a murky and unsta­ble world run by peo­ple who skirt that very thin line between pas­sion­ate artists and Bond vil­lain-style megalomaniacs.

In Bol­shoi Baby­lon, we don’t real­ly learn any more than that. It appears that becom­ing involved in the bal­let at this lev­el requires polit­i­cal dis­cre­tion that some find uncom­fort­able. We meet dancers thrilled to endure intense phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal pain to realise their child­hood dreams. We see them smil­ing ner­vous­ly and hes­i­tant to acknowl­edge the rot, lest they incur the ire of their shady mas­ters. Between inter­views there are sundry shots of dancers prac­tic­ing tire­less­ly and some archive footage of past greats on stage.

It’s inter­est­ing how the direc­tors allow sub­jects to think that they are at the cen­tre of the film, while in the edit, the tes­ti­monies are played against one anoth­er as a way to empha­sise the inter­nal con­flict. Maybe it’s unfair to sug­gest the results would be sim­i­lar were you to turn your cam­eras on any com­mer­cial enter­prise of this size, yet the con­clu­sion that crooked pol­i­tics, way­ward egos and a cli­mate of fear are core to the Bolshoi’s day-to-day activ­i­ties hard­ly makes for break­ing news.