Ballets Russes (2005)

From the 1930s through the 1960s, two internationally renowned dance companies claimed to be the famous ballet troupe entitled to call itself Ballets Russes — founded in Paris by Sergei Diaghilev, then split into rival factions that pitted ballerina against dainty competitor, passionate fan against fan. Ballets Russes, a classical, elegiac film directed with a choreographer's eye by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, lets some of those dancers, now specimens of elegant aging (a few have since died), tell the story of a grand moment in high-art culture. The archival footage is so breathtaking, the reminiscences so piquant, that even a stranger to dance can't help but be swept up by this peek into such exquisite, now vanished glamour.