Mr. Gaga (2015) Reviews

• Movement Language

  ferguson-62016-03-30

  Greetings again from the darkness. Don't think for a second this has anything to do with the globally famous Lady Gaga; however, if the name recognition causes a few more people to watch this labor of love and respect from filmmaker Tomer Heymann (Paper Dolls, 2006), then so much the better. Creative geniuses make fascinating subjects for talented documentarians, and Israeli dancer and modern dance choreographer Ohad Naharin is certainly no exception. The opening scene captures Ohad working with a female dancer on the proper way to fall down … over and over – even after she bangs her head on the floor. It's our first of many glimpses behind the scenes of his style for rehearsals. His quiet intensity perhaps restrained for the cameras; he harps on dancers more about emotion than technique. Ohad's own words provide much of the film's backdrop and structure. That combined with the stunning performance footage from numerous shows he choreographed, we begin to get a feel for this driven visionary. By the end, we have also been provided some insight into his childhood, his late arrival to formal dance training, the death of his first wife/co-creative partner, and the birth of his first child. We see clips of his prowess as a young dancer who couldn't find fulfillment in the dance companies of Martha Graham or Maurice Bejart, but who seemed destined to make his mark with modern dance … sometimes causing a bit of controversy along the way. His founding of Gaga – what he calls "movement language" is given a celebrity endorsement from Natalie Portman, who mentions that it allows her to find pleasure in dancing, which is more typically associated with pain. Ohad's own description is that Gaga is designed for us to "listen to our body before we tell it what to do". He proclaims that Gaga is accessible to the masses, and that dance has the power to heal. Director Heymann's film expertly captures many sides to Ohad Naharin, a man originally drawn to dancing not as a career, but rather as something he enjoyed. The talented dancers and the extensive rehearsal footage remind us of the physical and mental grind required to achieve greatness in dancing … a lesson that carries forward for most any endeavor.

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• not just a dance film

  ringmoi2017-02-01

  Ohad Naharin's rigorous insistence on open 'failure' in his dance studio might come as a bit of a shock to those who wonder how his Batsheva Dance Company members achieve that special something: with only several minutes to go before showtime they continue to 'fail' and 'fall' in front of the choreographer, and several concerned onlookers... Vulnerable? Yes. But Heymann's meticulous documentation of Naharin's own life path proves the point: After years of difficult army service followed by a move 5,000 miles away from home Naharin jumped headfirst into professional company auditions and advanced dance classes in NYC (sans-official training, basically as an adult beginner, and *cough also alongside Nureyev). After several initial successes he suffered a game-changing injury that normally causes the kind of despair or anxiety that ends careers or kills momentum. But for Naharin, this was a chance to discover something new, and he used his physical limitations to uncover GAGA - the movement language that has gained international fame and bears the honor of this film's title. "Your strength is your weakness, and your weakness is your strength." Fall harder. There are no excuses. A must see for dancer and non-dancer alike.

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• Electric... riveting... choreographic brilliance

  amit-895642017-01-27

  Beautifully shot and thoughtfully assembled, Mr. Gaga is a well-rounded documentary that uses interviews, performances, and behind-the-scenes footage to convey the importance of and fascination with Ohad Naharin, even to audiences that know nothing about dance. The film shows you much of Naharin's groundbreaking work, but it also goes deep trying to penetrate his psyche. Heymann gets about as close as anyone ever will. So many biographical documentaries fall into the trap of loving their subjects so much that they forget to bring a critical eye to the table. Heymann makes no such mistake. Naharin's life is presented as honestly as possible. The dance sequences in Mr. Gaga, so named for the "movement language" that is Naharin's key innovation, are presented beautifully on screen. If you know nothing of dance, or don't have the slightest interest in it, you will still be mystified by what is on screen. The Batsheva dancers move in ways you might not even imagine the body could move. Tomer Heymann perfectly melds the performances into the story

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• I Usually Loathe 'Modern Dance' But He Won Me Over

  poetcomic12017-06-17

  At the end of this movie I was simply overwhelmed by the intense and poetic range of Ohad's creativity. The dances are always rooted in real human feeling and the living human body. Most touching moment for me was his troupe working with severely disabled children - picking them up and moving with them if they could hardly move at all. Knowing nothing of dance per se, I found his instructions to his troupe a real eye-opener, sometimes he is trying to say the un-sayable - but he manages to get it across somehow. Incidentally, I appreciate his traumatic memories of the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Arab nations surprise attacked on the holiest day of the Jewish year, with a genocidal savagery as infamous as Pearl Harbor.

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