QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM MALTA

It all begins on stage, and it looks very promising. Several dancers perform vigorously, while images of fire are screened behind them. There is no visible audience, suggesting that this is a mere rehearsal. For a fleeting moment, the act looks visceral, even radical. Maybe a fiery Pina Bausch-style intervention is about to follow. Or perhaps a 21st century riff on Carlos Saura’s explosive, metalinguistic Carmen (1983). Neither of these possibilities materialises. The hope for burning Arab passion and cinematic inventiveness fades just as quickly as it materialised. In fact, there is barely any dancing for the rest of the film.

As soon as the curtain call is finished, we find out that Aida (played by the co-director Afef Ben Mahmoud) was hurt mid-performance by her partner and fellow dancer Hedi (Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui). The exact nature of the injury is never revealed, in a movie that fails to make many explanations, and takes a a lot of poetic liberties. The doting director Nawel (Belhassen) loads the entire troupe on the company’s bus and drives them towards the doctor, only for a flat tyre to force them to cross the forest at the foot of the Atlas Mountains on foot. Aida has to rely of her young and resilient colleagues for a literal piggyback. They take turns helping the poor woman to reach for medical help. There are concerns that they could come across a bear, but it’s a troop of loud and furious macaques that first gets on their way.

The dancers come from various Arab nations, including Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Syria is briefly mentioned. This may explain the “Dance Troupe Without Borders” emblazoned on their vehicle. They walk day and night as they converse about their love, their dreams and their afflictions, occasionally throwing is some vague dance movements. The charming Hassan shares concerns about the future of the group with the director. He is played by Arab heartthrob Saleh Bakri, who you may recognise from The Blue Caftan (Maryam Touzani, 2022) and The Teacher (Farah Nabulsi).

Despite the intriguing set up, this is a story that never takes off. In fact, it falls flat on its face. The scarce dance acts are lukewarm at best. They look neither groundbreaking nor professional. Most crucially, they don’t tell a story at all. The middle-of-the-road, unimaginative script is not conducive to impassioned acting, despite the majority of the barely cohesive subplots being about love. As a result, the interactions lack freshness and spontaneity. The chemistry of the lovers is so phlegmatic that you can hardly work out who is infatuated with who. The cinematography and the technical wizardry do little in order to rescue the film from utter boredom. The tricks are basic and banal: the trees change colour, the background shifts, and people disappear. Presumably, the abundant artificial lighting in the woods is a lame attempt to draw an analogy between nature and the theatre stage. These people perform their emotions in the green in the same way that dancers perform their routine on stage. That’s hardly imaginative.

Ultimately, the movie journey is as aimless as the characters incursion into the forest.

Backstage is in the Official Competition of the 2nd Mediterrane Film Festival, in Malta.