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DVD Review: White Nights

Isabella Rossellini

The 1985 film White Nights paved the way for ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and tap dancer Gregory Hines to break into acting. It was also a spring board for Helen Mirren, Jerzy Skolimowski, and then Lancome model Isabella Rossellini who is the daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Directed by Mirren’s husband Taylor Hackford, the movie was shot in Finland, England, Portugal, and Scotland with scenes of St. Petersburg taped by a Finish film crew hired by Hackford.

The storyline represented the conditions of the mid-’80s when the division between Russia and America was fierce. Russians who defected to America were considered criminals, and Americans who aided Russian forces were condemned as traitors. Though White Nights focuses on the lives of two dancers, the political undertones are palpable.

The film opens with Baryshnikov, who plays the Russian danseur Nikolai Rodchenko. He is performing Roland Petit’s ballet Le Jeune Homme et La Mort opposite ballerina Florence Faure in a European opera house. Hackford is brilliant at showing the intensity of the danseurs as Nikolai plays the young man whose faithless lover turns into the face of death seducing him to climb up to the noose and hang himself. Ironically, Baryshnikov’s mother had committed suicide when he was very young. The scene is effective is presenting Nikolai Rodchenko as a superb danseur whom audiences adores. His manager Anne Wyatt, played by the veteran Broadway stage/film actress Geraldine Page, is his friend as well as his protector. Hackford had Page play an overly dramatic type of stage-mom who is immaculately groomed and looks after Nikolai’s needs.

After the performance, Nikolai and his manager are on flight to Japan to continue his tour when their plane goes into distress while flying over Siberia. The pilot informs the passengers to brace themselves for a crash landing on an airfield in Siberia. Nikolai panics knowing that he is a criminal in Russia for defecting to America. He runs for the lavatory where he tears up his passport so he won’t be identified by the Russian authorities. The plane is plummeting to the ground as he makes his way back to his seat, but the force of the impact thrusts him against the front wall of the cabin, and then he is hit by the stewardess’ food cart which knocks him unconscious. The scene is over the top but plausible. Nikolai is taken to a Russian hospital and separated from his manager by orders of KGB officer Colonel Chaiko, played by Jerzy Skolimowski. At this point, Nikolai’s manager has no control over what happens to him even when she goes to the US Consulate in St. Petersburg for help.

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Gregory Hines’ character, Raymond Greenwood and his wife Darya, played by Isabella Rossellini, are introduced. Raymond is a disenchanted American who has defected to Russia after becoming disgusted about killing people in the name of democracy. He and Darya have carved out a niche for themselves in a small northern town in Russia. He too is a stage performer though for small playhouses. He is singing and tap dancing in the American folk opera, Porgy and Bess when he is first seen in the film. Hackford again pays meticulous attention to the action of the characters and focuses on Hines’ shuffling feet.

Colonel Chaiko approaches Raymond and his wife to look after Nikolai while he is recuperating. It is at this stage that another layer of the story unfolds and Chaiko’s true intentions are revealed. He wants Raymond to convince Nikolai to dance for the season’s opening night at the Kirov, the ballet company where Nikolai Rodchenko first trained. At the Kirov, Nikolai meets his former paramour, Galina Ivanova played by Helen Mirren. They have a tumultuous scene in the rehearsal room where she erupts over Nikolai abandoning her when he defected. They share another scene when Nikolai dances on the opera house stage during a practice session, which brings Galina to tears. She decides to help him escape and contacts Wynn Scott from the American Consulate, played by John Glover.

The high point in the movie is when Baryshnikov and Hines’ characters are in the ornate rehearsal room, and they dance a route that has elements of ballet and R&B;/soul. The dance was choreographed by Twyla Tharp and the music was composed by David Foster. Their pairing is in an attempt to convince the KGB officers, who are watching them through the security cameras in the room, which Nikolai Rodchenko will perform on opening night at the Kirov.

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Before opening night, Nikolai’s escape plan is set into motion with Wynn Scott from the US Consulate scheduled to meet him. Nikolai has to make his escape in broad daylight. This is because Russia is so close to the North Pole, so the country experiences what is called “white nights” for a certain amount of months each year. This means it remains daylight throughout the day; hence, the title of the film.

Raymond and his wife Darya decide to escape with Nikolai and go to the US when they learn that Darya is pregnant. They decide that they don’t want to raise their child in an oppressed society where people have to be like Colonel Chaiko to survive. It is during their escape that Chaiko makes a surprise appearance at their suite. Raymond decides to stall Chaiko so his wife and Nikolai can make it to the rendezvous point where Wynn Scott would be waiting for them. Hackford makes the scene a nail-biting experience especially when Chaiko discovers that Raymond is covering up Nikolai’s escape. By the time Chaiko and his men reach the American Consulate, Nikolai and Darya are there. Darya makes a spectacle in front of the witnesses at the Consulate, and Chaiko has no choice but to surrender the two to the US, though he warns them that he has Raymond.

The final scene is designed to mislead the audience into thinking that Chaiko is taking Raymond to be executed, but in fact, he is being traded for an ally to Russia who was being held as a prisoner in America. The exchange is made at a bridge when the white nights are over and the sky is pitch-black. The only illumination comes from the soldiers flashlights. When Raymond and Darya are reunited, it is satisfying for the audience who can breathe a long sigh of relief.

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White Nights is a timeless classic. Hackford’s detail to artistic expression enthralls the audience, and his interpretation of the political climate then is insightful. It’s a movie that shows art can supersede politics and unite communities existing on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

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