Trapeze (Ekaterina Maximova-Vladimir Vasiliev, 1970)
DVDRip | 349.83 MB | Audio: 48000 Hz, MPEG Layer 3, 2 ch, 101,78 kbits/s | Video: 624x464, 29,9700 fps, DivX, 1738,14 kbits/s |
Length: 00:26:23
‘Trapeze’ is a relatively slight work, most notable for its early Prokoviev score (commissioned in 1924 for a small Parisian dance troupe with scant funds, so made for a quintet). Maximova plays a young girl who enters the world of a circus and eventually supplants the envious older ballerina (Ludmilla Vlasova) as the trapeze artist. Vasiliev stars as the clown and Natalia Ryzhenko’s choreography gives him full vent to live up to the ‘human torpedo’ tag.
The acrobatics are stunning: one-handed tumbles, incredibly fast pirouettes and a set of multiple spins straight into box split, which seems years ahead of its time in the range of movement. When the Harlequin (Boris Baranovski) spins across the lens, there seems little doubt that the effect is maximised by the film’s speed being accelerated; but the same artificiality never appears to have enhanced Vasiliev’s virtuosity. The action takes place in a fantasy circus arena, which looks cleverly like a cartoon set within which the human ffigures appear.