I am going to make this post but more coherent eventually but @i-am-the-oncoming-dork catapulted me back into my Feelings and like. Okay. The first 10 minutes or so of Strictly Ballroom is all very glitzy, glam-y, over the top, but THEN.
By stripping away the sequins and setting most of Scott and Fran's interactions in the dance studio, we don't have much opportunity to see the glittery frills that typify australian competitive ballroom dance, and it becomes clearer and clearer with every glimpse we DO see that the glamor is entirely fake, it's the shell of a thing that died a long time ago - any heart in ballroom dance is long gone. So you have to take away the artifice to build something new in its place.
And we WATCH it get built up - we literally WATCH Fran's dress being made (joyful, familial and communal! Dancing for the love of it!). And we see Scott being lent Rico's jacket - a genuine, heartfelt gift! It parallels watching Fran and Scott build their dance in the way that speaks to them.
Like, in order to be genuine in dancing-to-perform, as they do at the end, they have to be genuine in dancing for the love of it, like they do in the "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps" scene, like they do on the rooftop of the studio, like they do at Fran''s home. All of those scenes are gorgeous in their own rights, but they're far less about capital-P Performance than the climax of the movie - they're about making the alive thing, making the soul of their dance before they wrap it in tulle and go onstage.
Which means that when they do go onstage, just as glamorous as any other competing couple, they have something electric. Because their glamor is real, it is the only seashell in the room with the beating heart of its metaphorical nautilus still inside it. Because they are still, even in the center of the ballroom with hundreds of eyes on them, dancing for the love of it.
It's not about winning the Pan Pacific Amateur Five Dance Latin American Grand Prix, it's not about doing the best within the system of competitive ballroom dance - the trophies table falls, taking Barry Fife with it! They've already been disqualified! There aren't even any announced winners! It is JUST about discovering and rediscovering the thing that brought you to ballroom dance in the first place, that kept you going through all the years - it is JUST about loving the dance.
Which! Is WHY! The ending! Makes me cry! EVERY TIME!!!!!!! It is about Doug Hastings walking up to Shirley Hastings and asking her to dance, for the first time in DECADES!!!! It is about the whole audience pouring onto the dance floor, leaving no room for anyone to show off!!!! It is about Vanessa and Wayne and also the Greek Chorus kiddos RUNNING onto the dance floor because for the first time in who knows how long this looks FUN!!!
