Desert Dancer is a movie about dancing, but you shouldn’t call it a “dance movie.”
That title conjures up more familiar genre fare, like Kevin Bacon bringing the barn down in Footloose or Patrick Swayze sweeping Jennifer Grey off her feet in Dirty Dancing. Richard Raymond’s film chronicling the true story of exiled Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian may have equally stunning choreographed numbers – it would be hard not to with Akram Khan, the same man responsible for choreographing the opening of the London Summer Olympics, behind the scenes – but it has something else too: purpose.
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The film sets out to do justice to Ghaffarian’s struggle and the struggle of an entire nation yearning for the same rights and freedoms much of the rest of the world enjoys. A tall order, but one the cast, including Reece Ritchie — who’s given the enormous task of bringing Ghaffarian to the screen — and Slumdog Millionaire star Freida Pinto have dedicated themselves to for the past three years.
Produced on a shoestring budget, the film is raw and often unfiltered. Ghaffarian’s life plays out before our eyes. From a small boy secretly attending a Utopian art school in his hometown to a university student, conspiring with his friends to create an underground dance company in a country where dance has been outlawed, each scene on screen moves with intention.
Ritchie plays Ghaffarian for the better part of the film. A young college student, Ghaffarian is introduced to things he couldn’t find at home; peers with free-thinking ideas, unrestricted access to the Internet, Youtube. He soon discovers his passion; dance, but because it is outlawed (and severely punished by men who dub themselves the morality police) he and his friends must do it in secret. In a dingy room of a decrepit building, the group finds freedom, not just from the government and those trying to limit their rights, but freedom within themselves.
This is especially true for Pinto’s character – a woman who deals with her own personal demons in destructive ways. Pinto’s performance is gripping and hard to watch at times, but it brings an integrity to the film. These aren’t just a bunch of kids wanting to imitate Michael Jackson dance moves they pick up off the internet; they’re real people with real struggles.
And though we’re hesitant to label this a dance movie, the dancing is one of the most beautiful parts of the film. From Pinto’s mesmerizing audition to Ritchie and Pinto’s dance in the desert and finally Ritchie’s protest at the end of the movie, it’s easy to see why the actors needed to put in months of training in order to prepare for their roles. For their characters, dance isn’t just fun, it’s something that could cost them their lives and so, the only time to dance is when there is a purpose behind it.
Besides educating its audience on the political climate and the limitations on freedom that the people of Iran face to this day, Desert Dancer also succeeds in reminding us of what true passion is and the importance of finding it in your own life.
Desert Dancer opens in theaters April 16.
