Amazon Prime Video, Cirque du Soleil, Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net, Dawn Porter, DOC NYC, documentaries, film festivals, movies, Prime Video, reviews, TV
August 19, 2024
by Carla Hay
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net”
Directed by Dawn Porter
Culture Representation: Taking place in Las Vegas, the documentary film “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” (filmed from 2020 to 2021) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) who are connected in some way to the Montreal-based live performance company Cirque du Soleil.
Culture Clash: The team behind Cirque du Soleil’s long-running “O” show prepares to make a comeback in Vegas after being shut down for more than a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Culture Audience: “Cirque Du Soleil: Without a Net” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of Cirque du Soleil, acrobatic live performances, and documentaries about how businesses recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” is exactly what it appears to be: It’s a feel-good, occasionally dull promotional documentary about Cirque du Soleil’s “O” show return to Las Vegas after the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few performers get personal profiles. Therefore, som viewers might be bored. This is the type of movie that should be seen on the biggest screen possible or viewers might quickly lose interest. Most of the documentary’s appeal is in the climactic scenes showing the spectacular results of the rehearsal footage that takes up most of the film.
Directed by Dawn Porter, “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” (which was filmed in 2020 and 2021) had its world premiere at the 2022 edition of DOC NYC but wasn’t released until nearly two years later on Prime Video. The movie’s epilogue wasn’t updated and still has wording as if 2023 is in the future. “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” also seems outdated in other areas too. The human stories behind the “O” show comeback hold the movie together when the footage about the show’s technicalities becomes repetitive and not very surprising.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” begins by explaining that “O” isn’t just the longest-running Cirque du Soleil show, but it’s also the highest-grossing show in live entertainment. Most people who’ve seen “O” probably wouldn’t be able to tell you what the show’s story is about, but they usually rave about the spectacle of it all. There really is no plot to “O,” which has themes of surrealism and romance inspired by water and by European and Eastern cultures.
It’s a performance extravaganza of acrobats, artistic swimmers, trapeze artists, bike riders and dancers doing eye-popping and difficult stunts in an elaborate production set, including a massive stage filled with water. Documentary viewers are told that “O” needs about 2,000 costumes—just to give you an idea of how big the production is. The music of “O” (composed by Benoit Jutras) has a blend of classical Western and world instrumentation.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” begins in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused shutdowns and quarantines worldwide. As most people know, businesses that require in-person interactions and were deemed “non-essential businesses” were hit the hardest by the pandemic. All of Cirque du Soleil’s shows around the world suddenly came to a halt and were cancelled. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cirque du Soleil (which is headquartered in Montreal) had to lay off more than 90% of its employees. The company also filed for bankruptcy.
Daniel Lamarre, who was Cirque du Soleil’s president/CEO at the time, is seen commenting during the start of these shutdowns: “I never felt in my life we’d have no shows—nothing … For a moment, I thought this was the end.”
It wasn’t the end, of course, but it was a very long hiatus: about 400 days. During this hiatus, many Cirque du Soleil employees had to find other jobs. Some could not return to the company when Las Vegas lifted many quarantine and mask policies, and live shows were allowed to resume. (Lamarre stepped down as Cirque du Soleil’s president/CEO in December 2021, and he was replaced by Stéphane Lefebvre.)
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” shows the preparations made for “O” to resume in Las Vegas, with the re-opening set for August 2021. The “O” performers whose personal lives are featured include:
- Amber Basgall, an acrobat who took gymnastics as a child to help cope with her attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
- Danut Coserat, an artist coach who is a single father to two children.
- Emma Garrovillo, an aerialist whose husband Jeffrey Garovillo is a Cirque du Soleil technician.
- Rob Knowles, a dancer who fondly remembers his formative years when he and his brother would take dance classes together.
- Bill May, an artistic swimmer who hopes to someday compete in the Olympics if or when men are allowed in artistic swimming for the Olympics.
Basgall has the most compelling personal story. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was going through a difficult divorce. She also opens up about how the death of her brother (an Iraq War veteran who died when she was a teenager, after he returned home to the U.S.) has had a profound and lasting effect on her. She will only say that her brother died by gun violence. And during rehearsals, Basgall was dealing with anxiety issues, as well as some friction with her boyfriend Dre Brown.
Also featured in the documentary Cirque du Soleil employees who are not performers, such as senior artistic director Pierre Parisen, human performance manager Dan Niehaus, manager Joe Walsh, director of public relations Ann Paladie, hair/makeup technician Roger Stricker and senior company manager Tony Ricotta. The documentary only shows the personal lives of a select number of performers. And even then, it’s only fleeting, except for Basgall.
Most of the Cirque du Soleil employees who are identified by name in the documentary do not get enough screen time for viewers to find out anything meaningful about them as people. Also shown in “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” are acrobat Pierre Cottin, coach Al Light, carpentry supervisor Steve Dietrich, writer Franco Dragone, coach Kari Kreitzer, artistic director Christina Jones, acrobat Andriy Marchuk, diver Jorge Coseru, acrobat Artur Akhtiamov and coach Didier Antoine.
“Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” shows the technicalities that go into producing the “O” show, but there’s nothing surprising about the behind-the-scenes preparations. Even the “race against time” to get the show running again in less than a month doesn’t seem too suspenseful. Watching “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” is a perfectly fine way to pass the time for people interested in this subject matter, but this is a very “play it safe” documentary that doesn’t go beyond what you might expect from a corporate-approved movie.
Prime Video premiere “Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net” on July 25, 2024.