This film is part of the Moro Spanish Film Festival. Ballet lovers will love this extraordinarily revealing and intimate film based on the life of Cuban premier danseur Carlos Acosta, the first black dancer to perform some of the most famous ballet roles.( eg in Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet , Albrecht in Giselle and Siegfried in Swan Lake for the Royal Ballet) . English National Ballet, Houston Ballet , American Ballet Theatre and the National Ballet of Cuba .In June 2008 he guested with the Australian Ballet . He was a permanent member of The Royal Ballet between 1998 and 2015 and celebrated his farewell after 17 years at The Royal Ballet, dancing his last performance in November 2015 in Carmen which he both choreographed and starred in. In January 2020 he will succeed David Bintley as artistic director of the Birmingham Royal Ballet . The film also features Acosta’s Cuban dance company, Acosta Danza .
Acosta is also an author – the film is based on his autobiography, A Long Way From Home – a Cuban Dancer’s Story . as well as fiction, and Acosta has also produced a dance work loosely based on his life , Tocororo . YULI is a blend of biographical drama , use of historical footage of Acosta performing ,and a contemporary dance piece
The film jumps back and forth between ‘now’ , Acosta overseeing classes and rehearsals and flashbacks inspired by the memories that the scrapbooks his father kept conjure up .
Two themes in particular emerge from this film – Acosta’s love/hate relationship with ballet and his tumultuous prickly relationship with his father Pedro . There is a very powerful male duet (with Acosta playing his father Pedro ) using a leather strap – we see memories of Acosta being brutally beaten by his father .
The many layers of conflict and identity in Acosta’s family are only broadly indicated and we don’t really see that much of his mother and sisters although it is emphasised how much he loves them .
Coming from one of Havana’s poor suburbs, all Acosta wants is to be an ordinary boy. We see how he spent his young years resisting his God given gift for dance and getting in to lots of trouble at ballet school .He eventually succumbs to the pressures of his father and dance teacher , and his gift eventually lands him in London. Homesick and miserable, Acosta eventually returns home to a Cuba facing great economic challenges and upheaval . With a little help from his friends, Acosta finally recognises that his future really is in dance and the rest becomes a blazing comet of ballet history.
Nicknamed Yuli by his taxi driver father Pedro , the young Acosta, as portrayed by Edilson Manuel Olbera Nuñez, is alternately adorable , saucy, combative and disturbed who loves Michael Jackson dance-offs with other kids in the area . His father Pedro decides that if his boy must dance, he will do it properly, and forcibly takes him off to the National Ballet School to audition. Despite his reluctance to “wear panty-tights like those faggots there,” and claiming he’d rather be a footballer, “like Pelé”. Acosta’s natural ability impresses future teacher and mentor Chery (Laura De La Uz) and he is offered a scholarship. While Acosta attempts to deny the pull of his talent and love of dance he can’t.
Eventually he grows up and turns into Keyvin Martinez (a dancer in Acosta’s own company) as the young-adult Carlos winning all sorts of awards including the Prix de Lausanne.
Over the course of the film we see various segment of Acosta’s life : growing up poor in Cuba; his facing down racism; travelling to London to become a principal dancer at the English National Ballet; the deteriorating health of his schizophrenic sister at home in Havana , and the conflicting demands of family and career.
What would have been helpful however was identification of some of the dance works performed and making it clear which sections were from the dance work for Acosta Danza. Yes you could pick the Le Corsaire solo, the balcony scene pas de deux from Macmillan’s Romeo and Juliet for example , but …
At the end of the film we see Acosta’s love for the theatre and how he suffers what Cocteau called ‘the red and gold disease’ in the way he strokes the stage floor and stands opening himself to the atmosphere of the theatre and a buoyant future.
Part of the Spanish Film Festival April/May 2019 screening at selected cinemas 16 April – 26 May 2019
https://www.spanishfilmfestival.com/films/yuli
Director Icíar Bollaín
Stars Carlos Acosta, Santiago Alfonso, Keyvin Martínez Edlison Manuel Olbera Núñez Laura De la Uz
