Having had a brush with a high-browballet-opera movie called THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, which left this reviewer in a state of dyspeptic vexation, one might hesitate to give TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER a try, not least because it is directed by none other thanPowell-Pressburger’s longtime editorReginald Mills, ashis sole dalliance with direction.
Nevertheless, melding anthropomorphic animals from Beatrix Potter’s beloved family-friendly fluffy creations with a dialogue-free ballet anthology,choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton, orchestrated by the Royal Opera House and performed by the dancers of the Royal Ballet, the film has its prestige written all over its artistic front, yet, truth to be told, film is a down-market alternative which repulses bona-fide ballet aficionados as it relinquishes the theater's live, spontaneous virtuosity for a seamlessly collated pageantry, an artificial collage of perfection through numerous corrections and adjustments, so if one can afford to witness it in the flesh, why deigns to a cheaper confection?
Blissfully, TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER still has no live theater counterpart 40-odd years later, so take it or leave it, this is all one can savor for the time being, a boisterous, adorable, sylvan divertissement particularly panders to foster a terpsichorean appreciation for youngsters, especially those who grow up with these on-screen characters, kit up in knockabout, down-home costumes.
Occasionally, Mills plays up the perspective game to enliven his otherwise ponderous and observational camera, for instance, projecting human-sized mice (encumbered withinconveniently inanimate tails)with the right proportion against a cod fireplace tableau, or put them under the peering of a real cat. But for all its innocuous charm, not to mention John Lanchbery’s euphonious musical coordination and the dancers’ slam-bang effort to balance between balletic agility and animal-like traits, TALES OF BEATRIX POTTER is an endearing one-trick pony precariously overstays its feature-length format.
referential entry: Michael Powell andEmeric Pressburger’s THE TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951, 5.1/10).
