‘Rookies’: Berlin Review

Dirs. Thierry Demaizière, Alban Teurlai. France. 2022. 115 min.

The kinetic pace of Rookies matches the dynamism of its subjects, a group of talented and ambitious high schoolers from diverse backgrounds in Paris who come together to perform hip hop dance battle. Their school, Turgot, has removed the geographical zoning barriers for this course, allowing in students from poorer districts. With a varied central cast of shy, sassy and stoic teenagers, this moving but at times fractured group portrait from dance documentarians Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai has more than just the mechanics of movement on its mind.

 The film is visually as energising as the art form it echoes

The opening film of Berlin’s Generation 14Plus section, Rookies continues Demaiziére and Teurlai’s collaborative efforts, following Reset, their ballet documentary on leading choreographer Benjamin Millepied (best known for the dance sequences in Aronofsky’s Black Swan) and Netflix series Move, which profiled several leading choreographers. Though the film is visually as energising as the art form it echoes, the breadth and depth of the life stories told in just under two hours means it flits a little too frequently between its subjects. Narrowing down to a smaller core group may have given their stories a little more room to breathe. Still, with an even-handed approach and Teurlai’s skilful edit, it has the potential for arthouse appeal, especially with cinemas and events hoping to attract younger audiences.

Filmed over one academic year (2018-2019), Demaiziére and Teurlai follow the students and their teachers as they arrive at Turgot, a Parisian high school with 1400 students. David Bérillon, a sports teacher and former dancer, is their dependable bedrock. He choregraphs and mentors and is the individual responsible for bringing hip hop into the curriculum at Turgot. Blending arts and culture with academics, Turgot’s principal Mr Berrand also removed the geographical zoning barrier, allowing wider access and diversity for this course.

The pace is mostly upbeat and rousing with the immediacy of Teurlai’s close-up cinematography and at times frantic edits of dance rehearsals and battles. But it also moves soundly into more reflective moments where students are interviewed, providing their moving – and often harrowing – backstories. It is here that the film hints at wider political issues, giving us the students’ thoughts on the change to their pace of life now they’re at the school. Charlotte, who was abandoned by her biological mother at birth and given an approximate age in a children’s home in Africa, states clearly that dance saved her life. Fuelled by the ferocity of the pain she has lived, Charlotte’s body in motion is like watching therapy in flow; tears fall from her eyes and a weight falls off her shoulders as Teurlai’s edit catches the fluidity of her movements, a stark contrast to the static camera and her sombre, tense upper body in direct to camera interviews. 

Though Mr Berrand sees letting a student go as a failure, it is Charlotte who resolves to leave the school. Her fortitude – strengthened through dance at Turgot – brings the film’s central message home. Certainly, there is potential for the school to help with personal and academic achievement for some students, but it never shies away from the reality that not everyone will complete the programme. These kids, the film honestly reveals, are far too complex to fit a picture-perfect narrative.

Pierre Aviat’s score, which is used sparingly at first, ramps up in the final act, its crescendo meeting Teurlai’s seamless edit of the students’ solo performances, which he has cut together to look like one choregraphed routine, highlighting both the communal and individual benefits of dance. It also shows resilience ahead of victory as a marker for success.

Foregrounding the students rather than the school, the film gives its final words to Charlotte, “I just want to be a dancer. And I know I will be. Whatever happens.” Rookies, the film suggests, may well be taught as a pack, but the final battle is waged and won alone.