Shall We Dance?

National Review, August 11, 1997 by John Simon

The dance is supreme, a metaphor for life itself with its ideals and pitfalls, its hopes and setbacks, its exhilarating mini-triumphs and confoundingly bitter jokes. Mai is Terpsichore, the spirit of the dance. When she hops, glides, floats along in a quickstep, guiding Sugiyama and Toyoko in a miraculous threesome across a seemingly dissolving floor, we watch transfixed and transported; it is as liberating an experience as art can bestow. The bittersweet peripetias in the course of which Mai and Sugiyama, who cannot become lovers but give something infinitely precious to each other, are so beautiful that even thinking about them brings tears to my eyes. The closest comparison is to Brief Encounter, but this is deeper and lovelier.

Every part, down to the merest walk-ons, is impeccably acted, and the leads are magnificent. Koji Yakusho, as Sugiyama, is the decent, average man rising to heights of generosity. His progression from dancing merely for Mai to discovering the joy of dance for its own sake is conveyed with ineffable tact, indeed nobility, and a magicianly blend of comedy and pathos. Hideko Hara is poignant as the wife, and as "Donny" Aoki, Naoto Takenaka is sublime in his funny-sad clowning. As Mai, Tamiyo Kusakari, a leading ballerina whose first dramatic role this is, is an archetypal bijin, or Japanese beauty, who embodies equally the ethereal and the sexy in dance, and proves, beyond that, an actress of shattering power.

Behind all this is the genius of the writer-director, Masayuki Suo. With what self-effacing but unfailing artistry he knows when to cut a scene off short on a key line, or when to stretch a scene out, pleasurably or achingly. He knows the interplay of brightly lit and dark sequences, the canny alternation of staccato and legato -- in sum, what really counts, the music of filmmaking: rhythm, counterpoint, polyphony, and the interweaving of contrasted themes to maximum effect. Further, he sees the goodness in all his characters, even the most risible ones, and approaches them all with deference and affection.

From Yoshikazu Suo, he gets the letter-perfect music score in absolutely apposite arrangements. And in Naoki Kayano, he has the cinematographer whose color sense subtly matches the words and music. There is, near film's end, as Mai speaks her letter to Sugiyama in voiceover, a brief shot of her in front of a seascape. It comprises cool slate blues and off-whites such as have never figured in the film's palette, but here complete a necessary color scheme. That is artistry. I can hardly wait to see Shall We Dance? for the third time.