Creature

Oscar-winning Amy and Senna (MIFF 2011) director Asif Kapadia fuses horror and expressionistic dance in this haunting ballet inspired by Woyzeck and Frankenstein.

On a remote Arctic research station, a captive creature (played by the English National Ballet’s charismatic principal dancer Jeffrey Cirio) is unwittingly enlisted into a military program that subjects him to sinister experiments. Amid this turmoil, he finds himself enamoured with a cleaner, the only person who shows him kindness; together, these two outsiders dream of escape from their dystopian surrounds.

Originally conceived for the stage by award-winning British choreographer Akram Khan and inspired by Georg Büchner’s classic play Woyzeck and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Creature is an expressive, dialogue-free performance of pure movement. Featuring camerawork as kinetic as the captured dancers, swooping and swerving to immerse the viewer in impassioned choreography, the film is also restricted – like predecessors Dogville and Pina – to a single setting, evoking a claustrophobia that acts as metaphor for state control and exploitation. The result is a singular cinematic experience at once spellbinding, tragic and deeply moving.