Alive and Kicking

A young dancer has given himself over entirely to his work. Faced with death, he has to look again at both his career and his life. In that time he meets a man older than himself. The man becomes his lover, his mentor and his companion. The film holds the illness and the dancing inside the same story. The tension between the body on stage and the body falling ill sits at the centre of the account. It neither asks for pity nor builds heroism. The ninety eight minutes are given to that relationship. Jason Flemyng and Antony Sher take the leads, with Bill Nighy also in the cast. Nancy Meckler’s British film was completed in 1996.