Selected cinemas
Suddenly 3D is everywhere, a shiny new toy for filming dance. In Pina, Wim Wenders's imminent documentary about the work of Pina Bausch, the technology justifies itself in spades. Not only does it ramp up the physical intensity of the movement, it works an alchemical effect on our emotional response.
By contrast, the new 3D version of the Mariinsky's Giselle is so disconcertingly wonky it makes your eyes hurt. The technology looks as though it's barely been tested; drastic changes of focus disrupt the action, and there are frequent moments when dancers appear to have been cut and pasted on to the screen from an entirely different performance (often the front line of the corps de ballet appear a whole foot shorter than those behind).
And yet, and yet: when the technology works, it gives us glimpses of how extraordinary a 3D Giselle might be. Act two is the most powerful: with hallucinatory closeups of the Wilis criss-crossing the stage in a flash of white skirts and moonlight; a stab of pure mortal terror when they line up to bar Albrecht's exit, and we see a diagonal of ghostly predatory women stretching to infinity, in-front and behind.
The hyperrealism of the 3D closeup can be amazing: taking us almost inside the scissor-sharp brilliance of Leonid Sarafonov's batterie and the exquisite, deadly swoop of Ekaterina Kondaurova's arabesque. Best of all is the intimate access it gives us to Natalia Osipova's performance in the title role. She gave a five-star Giselle in London last summer, and the film, at its height, captures the vivid emotion flooding her blunt little face and the many, many small miracles in her dancing. For her alone, put on the glasses and go.