The film can be summed up simply as a young boy Billy pursuing his ballet dreams, but that generalization basically takes away the arc of the story. A story about a gifted young boy who broke through prejudices and stereotypes, overcame many difficulties, and finally became a good ballet dancer. Thinking about it is mediocre enough. Fortunately, the film does not focus on that.
In fact, Billy did not overcome too many difficulties and obstacles by himself. He was lucky to meet Bole, his ballet teacher. She encouraged Billy to learn ballet from the very beginning, and after Billy was forced out by his father, she taught Billy one-on-one and informed Billy about the selection. Most of the episodes about her in the movie are interactions with Billy, but it is enough to portray her life, her frustrations, her sustenance in Billy, and even when she breaks into Billy's community, it is revealed. The middle class and the bottom miners are out of reach. She's the flesh-and-blood supporting character in Billy's story.
Much of the emotion we get from Billy isn't even about Billy. Billy's dream was nothing for a miner's family in the midst of a desperate strike. Billy is also very clear, so there is no drama in the movie to fight against the family for the dream. When Billy teacher came to the door, his brother's anger was understandable and completely legitimate. Even at the end of the story, when Dad gleefully ran to tell the co-workers, the co-workers were caught in the news that the strike had failed and had no time to celebrate.
But the father, brother, grandmother, and even the deceased mother all play a vital role in Billy's story, and we see the father's transformation from Billy's perspective, the man who would rather split his dead wife on Christmas. Piano Heating is also reluctant to give up the striking man to return to work for Billy's ticket. We can see many details about the family members and their plights: my brother likes rock records, smokes marijuana, was arrested by the police for his radical stance, grandma is a little confused, studied ballet, and maybe a professional dancer when she was young dream. These details give a heart-pounding weight to the wait for Billy to come back and tear down the notice.
There are many political and social metaphors in the film, about the tough confrontation between government and trade unions, self-identity and social impressions, gender and class, but these are just undercurrents of the story, everything is still about Billy, about his ballet and dreams. . The film perfectly depicts a simple story in reality, and neither the dramatic parallel editing nor the soundtrack loses its authenticity. I thought it might have been a more powerful ending to stop at the scene where dad and brother sink in the elevator, but there's nothing wrong with a somewhat worldly perfect ending.
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