Saw Strictly Ballroom, a film directed by Baz Luhrmann, the guy who directed Moulin Rouge(!) and Romeo + Juliette. This is one was an early film in his career, so he hasn't yet embraced his innate lust for camp in quite the glorious, full-thoated way that Moulin Rouge does. Yet this film is deeply and delightfully campy, focusing on a dancer who is the son of two dancers. He desperately wants to win the big ballroom dance competition but (oh no!) he keeps dancing steps that aren't on the list of official acceptable ballroom dance moves!! His mother screams, his father looks away, ashamed, his dance instructor grows "come one, boy! Show them your ballcraft!" The whole thing is a hoot.
The film is sweet and simple, silly and goofy. It's in no way challenging, just a pure puff-ball of a film. It giddily trips from spectacle to spectacle, doing everything in its power to convince you that ballroom dancing is amazing and exciting. It mostly works because it provides you a snarky out by poking fun at itself often. It doesn't seem to take itself seriously and, for me at least, this gave me permission to just lay back and enjoy myself. It's simplistic and silly in parts, but it knows it. It's also grand and melodramatic at other times, and is just a lot of campy fun.
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