Critic Reviews
47
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
1(9%)
mixed
10(91%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 11 Critic Reviews
75
Even filmgoers who aren't into dance will find this story captivating because, as much as anything, Sokvannara wants to please his audience, whether in the concert hall or the movie theater. The kid is a natural.
60
An illuminating profile but a sloppy snapshot of the immigrant experience.
60
Dancing lacks probing interviews to highlight the tremendous cultural change, but Sy remains an engaging focus point and there are numerous performance sequences that ably demonstrate his growing accomplishments.
50
We get white folks ruminating lyrically on the peasant Asian's role as a kind of grand jeté bridge between East and West, and long performance sequences that are dazzling to behold but quite troubling to contemplate.
50
Offered only hints of life away from the barre or of Sy’s relationship with his coolly poised benefactress, viewers will see either a very fortunate young man or a beautiful protégé, dancing as fast as he can to please everyone but himself.
50
It would have been nice to learn as much about Sar the man as about Sar the dancer.
50
A dramatic story, to be sure, but not exactly grippingly told by its first-time filmmaker.
50
Dancing Across Borders, Anne Bass' uneven docu debut, traces the fortunes of Cambodian ballet dancer Sokvannara "Sy" Sar from the time Bass first discovered him performing traditional temple dances at Angkor Wat to his conquests on the world stage.
50
Well-meant though it may be, the movie has an advertorial gloss.
50
Would have benefited from the kind of objectivity that Bass -- as Sar's well-heeled sponsor -- was hardly in a position to deliver.
