Was switching up the movies I keep on a mobile device this afternoon, and ended up distracted enough from the chosen task at hand that I ended up watching one of the movies all the way through on my laptop instead of just dragging it onto the device I was reloading.
Anyway the movie was the documentary Secundaria (means "high school" in Spanish), featuring the progress of several students through Cuba's National Ballet School, and certainly demonstrating some of the reasons that Cuban ballet artists are so proficient and held in such high regard.
The movie is unusual for its particular subgenre, in that rather than staying away from political issues, it does cover things like the confiscation of prize monies by the state when the young winners return home from competitions, and it also reports on the eventual defection of one student, Mayara Pineiro, now a principal dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet.
Meanwhile the film focused on not only the instruction of the selected dancers-- male and female-- but also provides glimpses of some of their performances plus engaging views of their lives at home (and with each other in their free time). Some of them are from quite impoverished backgrounds. All are treated as special in that if successful they may well end up the main source of decent income for their families. There are what I would call only summarizing or focused subtitles in English to cover conversational scenes. The narrator does speak American English throughout the film. However, there could be some slight loss of context now and then for non Spanish speakers.
LOL not a senior moment, more like a senior 90 minutes... I am sick of our long stretches of grey rainy weather lately punctuated by half-days of sunshine... and think it's going to my brain. Or so went my excuse today.
Anyway the movie was the documentary Secundaria (means "high school" in Spanish), featuring the progress of several students through Cuba's National Ballet School, and certainly demonstrating some of the reasons that Cuban ballet artists are so proficient and held in such high regard.
The movie is unusual for its particular subgenre, in that rather than staying away from political issues, it does cover things like the confiscation of prize monies by the state when the young winners return home from competitions, and it also reports on the eventual defection of one student, Mayara Pineiro, now a principal dancer with the Pennsylvania Ballet.
Meanwhile the film focused on not only the instruction of the selected dancers-- male and female-- but also provides glimpses of some of their performances plus engaging views of their lives at home (and with each other in their free time). Some of them are from quite impoverished backgrounds. All are treated as special in that if successful they may well end up the main source of decent income for their families. There are what I would call only summarizing or focused subtitles in English to cover conversational scenes. The narrator does speak American English throughout the film. However, there could be some slight loss of context now and then for non Spanish speakers.
