Razzle Dazzle: A Journey Into Dance Essay

Razzle Dazzle: An Amusing Mockumentary
Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance is a 2007 Australian Mockumentary directed by Darren Ashton. Featuring main actors including Ben Miller who starred as Mr. Jonathan, Kerry Armstrong who played Justine and Shayni Notelovitz as Tenille. The main genres of this movie are documentary, comedy and musical. This mockumentary takes the audience on a journey with Mr. Jonathon and Ms. Elizabeth’s dance groups as they battle for the top prize at a national dance competition in Australia. This film is a great film for family viewing. Although some jokes were hard to laugh at, there were many hilarious moments on screen.

This comic mockumentary was set in Sydney, Australia. In this film, we first meet Mr. Jonathan.

He is a dance teacher and choreographer who is preparing his group of pre-teen dancers to take part in a national dance tournament. Mr. Jonathan only produces dance routines which portray social or political messages. The controversy that his routines cause stood in the way of his success at previous dance competitions. His strongest opponent is Miss Elizabeth. She is an old-school, strict and posh teacher. Her ego is brought up by the success of her students in the past years. This year, Mr. Jonathan is determined to defeat her with his routine about freedom against oppression of women in Afghanistan. Justine, an overeager and pushy stage mother assists Mr. Jonathan through the journey. In return, her daughter Tenille gets the lead role of his routines. However, this only lasts till Grace, a talented youngster who takes dance very seriously comes along which causes Tenille to lose the spotlight.

This film follows the style of a mockumentary very well.

The emotionless interviews and manipulation of the audience to empathise with the underdog perfectly suited the format of a mockumentary. The satirized characters in this film were very well written. The pushy stage mother, Justine, tries to live her unfulfilled dreams through her daughter, Tenille and she will stop at nothing to ensure that her daughter’s team will win. Another aspect of the film that suits a mockumentary is how the youngsters are portrayed as talented. By doing this, the satire is smoothly focused and transferred to the adults.
Although this film contains several laugh-out-loud moments, there are some jokes that can’t be easily laughed at. Foster mother, Barbara returns kids who lack dancing talent to their foster homes. This film also includes abusive mothers and teachers who make nasty comments about body image issues. For example, in one of the interviews, Miss Elizabeth admits that she tells some parents that their children are “fat, lazy and untalented.”

Overall, this film has the perfect format of a mockumentary, great acting and well-written satirized characters. This film is suitable for ages 12+ and anyone who is interested in seeing what goes on behind the scenes of dance

competitions.