"The Dancer Upstairs"
The haunting refrain of Nina Simone singing "Who Knows Where the Time Goes" ebb and flow as three people drive to a border checkpoint of an unnamed Latin American country. The sergeant in charge of the barrier follows standard security procedures and photographs the passengers. He sends the strangers on their way, not knowing that he allowed the anarchist leader called Ezequiel (Abel Folk) to enter his country and begin a reign of terror. Now, the sergeant, Agustin Rejas (Javier Bardham), is a high ranking police officer dedicated to apprehending the man who slipped through his fingers years ago in John Malkovich's directorial debut, "The Dancer Upstairs."
Based on the screenplay by Nicholas Shakespeare, from his original novel, helmer Malkovich has crafted an intriguing work that is an interesting story of political machinations in a country so wrought with revolutionary attacks, often on innocent people, that it is on the verge of Marshall Law. Agustin Rejas has spent 12 years of his life hunting down the mysterious Ezechiel, using plain old gumshoe work and tenacity to track his prey. An honest cop, dedicated to his job and his country, Rejas must work within an inherently corrupt system but even he is susceptible to corruption.
During the course of his investigation, Rejas, through his beloved daughter Laura (Marie-Anne Berganza), meets her ballet teacher, Yolanda (Laura Morante), and she is everything his dedicated bourgeois wife, Sylvina (Alexandra Lencastre), is not. Laura is passionate about her country and its people but Rejas will painfully learn that love and politics can intertwine and, for Agustin, shatter his idyllic illusions about his fellow man. This is where the other part of "The Dancer Upstairs" doesn't fare so well as Bardham and Morante never develop the necessary chemistry to give this side of "The Dancer Upstairs" full dimension.
John Malkovich may be a newcomer to the helm but his vast experience as an actor allows him to garner good performances, especially by Javier Bardham, who, when you've ever seem him in person, say, at a press conference, you realize just how fine an actor he really is. Bardham conveys the satisfaction, frustration and the pain of being a policeman, especially in a country racked by inner violence and turmoil.
Malkovich directs with a staid and steady hand and he garners good performances, even from the actors in smaller rolls. The screenplay works more than it doesn't but there isn't the chemistry between the stars I would like to see. I give it a B.
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