The New York Times review of Crazy Horse – a documentary about legendary Parisian erotic dance club – isn’t very high on its praise for the film, but perhaps we can just chalk it up to the Grey Lady’s legendary prudery. The doc opens tonight in New York, and I very much want to see it.
When I was in Paris in 2009, I wanted to vist the club but was unable to for various reasons – I’ll make up for that as soon as I can, tempted by the excitement in the Crazy Horse trailer above. Here’s a snip from today’s NYT review:
“Crazy Horse,” Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary, invites the viewer to contemplate the intricacies of the creative process, the daily rhythms of a complex organization and the tensions between artistic ambition and practicality — and also to look at very beautiful women wearing very little.
(…) Crazy Horse, which opened in Paris in 1951, offers a particularly French blend of sophistication and vulgarity. The choreographers and directors speak in high-flown philosophical terms that don’t seem nearly as profound, or as sexy, in the English subtitles. It’s true that some of the numbers, like the club itself, have English names — “Baby Buns,” to take one example — and that many are accompanied by Anglo-American pop songs of eclectic vintage. But the grinding, teasing and undulating are shrouded in gauzy Gallic abstractions that would be out of place at your local pole-dancing emporium: l’érotisme, la séduction, la beauté, le désir. (…read more, )
See also, Dita Von Teese’s performance at the Crazy Horse on DVD and through iTunes.