Dancing is one of the most beautiful sights in cinema. There's a reason some of the earliest movies captured ballet dancers or two people doing simple dance movies. Dancing is such a cathartic exercise. It's how we express emotions, passion, or jubilation that words cannot convey. It's also just deeply evocative to watch on-screen, especially when it concerns two people becoming physically intimate in the acting of dancing. Iconic director Claire Denis is no stranger to the power of cinematic depictions of dancing thanks to the unforgettable ending of her 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail. No offense to that stirring conclusion (which really is a masterwork of filmmaking), but for my money, the greatest Denis dance sequence comes in one of her slightly later movies. That title would be 35 Shots of Rum, a 2009 Denis directorial effort that contains a dancing sequence I cannot remove from my brain.
Some context: 35 Shots of Rum is a quiet character study chronicling the lives of father Lionel (Alex Descas) and adult daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). The duo live together in an apartment building and have carved out a life where they rely heavily on each other. Lionel is a widower and Josephine is a woman who never knew her mother. A sense of loneliness permeates these two leaving them dependent on each other. As 35 Shots of Rum goes on, the script by Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau depicts Josephine beginning to develop a life beyond just her relationship with her father. Both she and Lionel start to realize there may be more to existence than their rapport.
This realization is especially apparent once Lionel and Josephine seek shelter from the rain inside a bar. Joining the pair is Noé (Grégoire Colin), a neighbor in their apartment building with feelings for Josephine. As everyone settles down in the bar, Lionel and Josephine initially dance together to the tune of "Siboney", a Ralph Thamar tune. Then, the songs change. The Commodore's ditty "Night Shift" begins to play. This is when Noé enters the frame and, without saying a word, indicates he wants a dance with Josephine. Lionel retreats from the shot, leaving these two people as the only folks in the shot.
Denis and Agnès Godard do not have the camera blink away as Lionel and Josephine start to dance together. Nor are more intimate shots employed to fit the standards of typical romantic movie sequences. Instead, the camera is kept away from the characters and their initial physicality is framed in a cold unbroken shot. There isn't immediate rapturous love between these two. There is a bit of awkwardness as they try to publicly dance together. The precise placement of the camera and the refusal to cut away accentuates that self-consciousness beautifully. When the camera finally does cut away, it's to a close-up shot of Lionel looking on in intense distress. He's bottling up his emotions, but Alex Descas still vividly conveys how conflicted this character feels. Lionel is witnessing first-hand how his daughter has a life beyond him.
Returning to Josephine and Noé, 35 Shots of Rum gets a lot of power from how exceptional Diop and Colin are at dialogue-free acting. In the hands of these performers, one feels a rollercoaster of emotions watching Josephine and Noé navigate the ritual of dancing. For a moment, there seems to be a sensual sweetness to their interactions, especially the way their fingers interlock. Then Noé will become a little too enamored with clutching Josephine's hair. A sense of unease suddenly fills every inch of the viewer. With the camera not cutting away, the viewer observes Josephine and Noé exploring whether or not they work well together in real time. Eventually, the dancing fizzles out, with the duo sitting down at nearby chairs. Both look distraught with what just happened. I love Colin's body language for Noé in this moment, his right arm stretched towards Josephine (but not touching her) while his head is tilted at the ground.
Colin's physicality here communicates vividly how Noé is torn between his feelings for Josephine and a desire to live independently (Noé is always threatening to leave the apartment complex and move far away). Meanwhile, Diop curls Josephine's two hands together, eyes staring off into space as she fully absorbs what it was like to dance with Noé. Neither Colin nor Diop need dialogue to convey these complicated interior worlds. Their slightest actions say so much about Noé and Josephine. Meanwhile, Denis and Varda have kept the camera so intensely focused on Noé and Josephine on the dance floor. Once these two characters sit down, it becomes mildly disorienting (in a good way) to suddenly see them in the background of a shot. As Noé and Josephine recover, the camera cuts away from these two to a server at the bar preparing a dish. We follow this woman as she brings the dish to its intended customer. As she does so, the camera only captures Noé and Josephine as background figures to the larger bustling eatery. As this pair of figures ruminates on their dynamic, they become disassociated from the dance floor and even the other people around them. The camerawork mirrors their relationship to the wider world by forcing them into the background. It's a mesmerizingly detailed bit of camera work reflecting how the multi-faced visuals of 35 Shots of Rum mirror the incredibly nuanced characters on-screen.
After watching his daughter dance with Noé, Lionel proceeds to get on the dance floor himself with the kindly woman who let him and his group into this bar. This moment and the entire dance sequence thrive on a transfixing sense of ambiguity. Is Lionel doing this to "spite" his daughter? To show her that he too is capable of existing without her? Perhaps his reasons are more innocent. Perhaps he's trying to stave off the loneliness that's clearly consuming his recently retired friend Rene. Maybe he even feels genuinely attracted to this lady. All the ambiguity in this sequence excitingly reminds one of the opening sequence of Past Lives. There, a pair of off-screen figures try to decipher the dynamic between the three lead characters of Past Lives. They don't know these people, they never will. Yet they're trying to decode these mysterious lives from the small physical clues they can gleam from across the bar.
The dancing sequence in 35 Shots of Rum leaves viewers and even this film's in-universe character in a similar situation. Without any dialogue or ham-fisted visual cues to hammer home character motivations, there's a thrilling sense of realistic ambiguity to the actions of everyone on-screen. Meanwhile, folks like Josephine and Lionel aren't talking to one another in this scene. They can only watch from across the room, trying to interpret what's going on in the other person's mind. With so little direct communication, they and the viewer are left to stew over the meaning behind every tiny movement. There's love, hate, contempt, affection, pain, and everything in between swirling around on that tavern dance floor. All those paradoxical emotions require deeply intricate performances. The actors inhabiting this unforgettable 35 Shots of Rum sequence are more than up to that challenge.
Meanwhile, the very precise visual language of this entire scene is just as remarkable as the work delivered by individuals like Descas and Diop. It's especially great how Denis and Varda subvert the wider shots of Josephine and Noé dancing with later claustrophobic images of Lionel swaying the night away with a lady. Capturing his time dancing in cramped confines suggests how trapped this man feels. He is torn between the realization that his daughter is growing up into an independent person and his burning desire for the status quo to remain. He cannot escape his sense of entrapment even whilst dancing "romantically", hence the tight close-up shots.
Even the needle drop choice here is a perfect pick that ingeniously compliments the complicated tone of this 35 Shots of Rum scene."Night Shift" by Commodores totally sounds like a great dancing song with its irresistible groove, pounding drums, and vocals that ooze with desire. However, there's also something bittersweet to the tune. Perhaps it's the wistful nature ingrained into the tune by way of it being a tribute to Jackie Wilson and Marvin Gaye. Maybe it's the way the chorus vocals seem to echo endlessly as if they're being sung into a void rather than a dance floor packed with sweat and sexual energy. "Night Shift" is equally effective at being both a toe-tapper and a wistful melody. Those nuanced qualities make it the perfect backdrop to this 35 Shots of Rum sequence, which transverses as many different emotions as the song. "Night Shift" can communicate the potential burgeoning between Josephine and Noé. Its lyrics also beautifully crystallize the mindset of a man a bit too trapped by the past.
Every little detail of this dancing sequence in 35 Shots of Rum absolutely transfixed me. It's a scene that just aches with realistic depictions of yearning, longing, and quiet despair. It's also a sequence that reminds us all just how glorious dancing is in the world of cinema. Whether it's an intricately choreographed display of Gene Kelly's masterful dancing or the more realistically messy dancing seen in 35 Shots of Rum, this physical act is a perfect fit for the world of movies...especially when it's being brought to life by a director like Claire Denis!
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