The Expression of Self

I watched two movies last night. A Japanese drama, and it's American re-make. One story, from the perspective of two different cultures. "Shall We Dance?" is about a married man who learns Ballroom Dance, partially as relief from the monotony that his life has become, and partially out of his interest in a young dance instructor he sees every day from the train on his way home from work.

She wants nothing to do with him at first, but as he improves his skills and prepares for an upcoming dance competition, she finds that teaching him her life's passion, and working with him in pursuit of a worthy performance at the competition fills a void in her life. She falls for him, in a sense, because of the purpose she has found since he came into her studio.

It is an interesting journey. The man is surprised to run into a co-worker at the studio, and as they talk, he sees dance as a potential emotional outlet. He is swept into the dancing sub-culture, and the challenge, excitement, and camaraderie he feels as he prepares for the competition bring a new relevance and urgency to his life. He begins to think he is happy.

When he sees his wife and daughter in the audience during his performance, his distraction leads him into another couple. There is a collision, not only on the dance floor, but between his world of traditional responsibility, and this new world of excitement and vitality which dance had come to represent to him. The confusion and embarrassment to him, his partner, wife, instructor, and friends is too much for him, and he quits dance.

The 'happy ending' is when he dances one last time with his instructor before she leaves for England, this time hiding nothing from his wife. All in all, a moving portrayal of one man's answer to the mid-life crisis, his yearning to feel alive and important and understood. The lessons of life he learns slowly, and often through mistakes, just as he learned to dance in the studio.

The American version bore signature elements of Hollywood. No detail was overlooked. Rather than dancing to whatever happened to fit the genre, the music was selected to propel the story, if only in an emotional way. The youthful instructor, Paulina, dances an exhibition to the new group of students, not to whatever was in the vari-speed player, but to an instrumental of Moon River. Jazz tunes used in the studio continue playing as the star protagonist, Mr. Clark, was seen at work, or on the train, remonstrating that his up-beat attitude is merely an extension of the satisfaction he felt as he worked through that week's dance instruction.

The real difference was in the treatment of dance. In the Japanese film, it was primarily a vehicle for the man to use as his new-found interest. It was an accessory to the story. In the American version, it began that way, and became the story. Paulina's exasperated frustration with Mr. Clark as he moves through a particular latin dance has little to do with his foot work, or posture, or any other technical detail. Rather, she describes to him what the dance represents. She takes his partner, and narrates for Mr. Clark what she is saying already so much better through dance. "Hold her, as though the skin on her thighs were your reason for living. Let her go as though your heart were being ripped from your chest. Pull her back, as though you'll have your way with her, right here on the dance floor! Push her away, as though she's broken your heart, and ruined you for life."

Mr. Clark learns to express himself, and through his unfortunate experience at the competition, to accept rejection and be true to his inner voice. The night of Paulina's going-away party, he dresses in his fresh-pressed tuxedo, buys a red rose, and surprises his wife at work. When he asks her to dance, she protests saying "Here? Now? I don't know how to dance!"

He returns "You've been dancing with me for twenty years", and he takes her by the hand, and they dance. It's an expression of love, and as such lives up to the highest standard of dance as understood and taught by his instructors.

Just before the closing credits, 5 to 10 second snapshot footage is run of each of the major players in the story. In each scene, dance is the language spoken. In only seconds, each one tells his or her partner how he/she feels, as a poem in movement. They take place in apartment living rooms, in a kitchen, a back yard, a wedding reception. In each one, the ability to dance has become more than a past-time or form of entertainment. It has become a method of expression, one more suitably adapted than verbal language for communicating the emotion between a man and a woman, both in it's simplicity and it's ability to accommodate every nuance and variety of feeling.

It is this last collage that, to me, makes the movie. I wish I could express myself like that. I wish human interaction were always so graceful and beautiful. I wish I could connect with others not just as friends and associates, but first as human beings. I wish I could understand my own motivations well enough to be so confident in how I portray myself to others.