''Bolshoi Babylon'' is a 2015 British documentary film directed by Nick Read. It is about the history of Russia's

Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...

, including Pavel Dmitrichenko's 2013 acid attack on

Sergei Filin Sergei Yurevitch Filin (; born 27 October 1970) is a Russian ballet dancer and the former artistic director of the Bolshoi Theater from 2011 through 2016. He is currently the Director of the Young Artists Ballet Program at the Bolshoi Theatre. ...

. It premiered on 14 September at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

Interviews

Maria Alexandrova Maria Aleksandrovna Alexandrova (; born 20 July 1978) is a Russian principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet, People’s Artist of Russia. Biography Alexandrova was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, and attended the Moscow Choreographic Academy. Sh ...

* Maria Allash * Anastasia Meskova * Vladimir Urin *

Release

''Bolshoi Babylon'' premiered on 14 September 2015 at the

. In the US, it was theatrically released on 27 November 2015, after which it aired on the pay television station

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

on 21 December 2015. It was released 8 January 2016 in the UK, where it grossed $91,098.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, a

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

, reports that 78% of 18 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 6.4/10.

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

rated it 61/100 based on six reviews. Dennis Harvey of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' wrote that the film "is inevitably diverting as a well-shot partial peek behind the scenes, but reveals far less than intended." Leslie Felperin of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' wrote that the documentary becomes most interesting when it explores the theatre's internal politics. Geoffrey Macnab of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' rated it 4/5 stars and wrote that it "induces a sense of awe" about the theatre company.

Peter Bradshaw Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire'' magazine. Early life and education Bradshaw was educat ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' rated it 4/5 stars and wrote, "This enthralling documentary reveals the extraordinary upheavals at the Bolshoi Ballet as the tip of Russia’s rage iceberg". Brian Siebert of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called it "more attractive than illuminating", as it is "surprisingly short on drama" considering the subject matter. Laura Bleiberg of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' wrote, "These twin tracts of darkness and light, the sordid and the sublime, quite effectively submerge the viewer into a closed world."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 3505682 2015 films 2015 documentary films 2010s Russian-language films Documentary films about ballet 2010s English-language films 2010s British films British musical documentary films English-language documentary films