Let's Dance

Deliberately idiosyncratic, awkwardly uneven and ironically upbeat, given the many unpleasant vagaries and inherently unlikable characters floundering about, Let's Dance is perhaps more interesting than enjoyable. This stems from a desire to present the absurdity of human behaviour within the vacuum of crisis while balancing frank and uncompromising portrayals of the subjects with their delusional perceptions and fantasy, presented through animations and false flashbacks. For example, Salomon, the family patriarch in the film, is ruthlessly selfish but never given anything material to make him identifiable to an audience, aside from a story he tells his daughter during her childhood that involves slicing the throat of a fully nude Hitler, which we see in vivid detail. While it's nice to attach some character justification through allegory, a glimpse of this humanity outside of chimera would have made for a less frustrating and distancing viewing experience. When not battling Hitler in the recesses of his mind, Salomon (Jean-Pierre Mareille) struggles to remain vital in a world that's no longer interested in his 80-year-old body. His efforts include lying about his age in personal ads, confronting insurance agents for categorizing him as "high risk" and learning how to tap dance. He eventually finds an ideal match in the younger and highly neurotic Violette (Sabine Azema), whose suicide attempts and unpredictability keep Salomon on his toes. Meanwhile, Salomon's mentally unsound ex-wife Genevieve (Bulle Ogier) repeatedly gives away her worldly belongings to strangers despite not having enough money to pay her affable caretaker, Mr. Mootoosamy (Bakary Sangare). In the middle of all of this is daughter Sarah (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), who tries to hold the family together while dealing with the anxieties of pregnancy and relationship stability with Francois (Arie Elmaleh). The DVD release includes only a French trailer, as far as special features go.