As the film opens, we see a shadow show upon a yellow screen mounted against pitch black background. We see the shadows of a pair of hands forming the shape of a camel, then changing into profile of a devil. This is followed by a short episode of two girls rehearsing love making. We are then taken on a whirligig tour what went on at the back stage of the Crazy Horse, probably the world's best revue of naked female forms, done with taste, with grace and with elegance. We see naked girls putting on their false eye-lashes, painting their eye-lines, getting into their gears, chatting with each other, we see the director of the show, Philippe Decouflé, moving with utmost grace with his boneless body on a darkened stage, teaching the girls how to move their hands across their body to the tune of some jazz rhythms, the girls rehearsing various numbers, including singing the theme song of the Crazy Horse, supposed to bring to the audience the paroxysm of seduction, of desire and of Parisien eroticism and sheer joy in the beauty of the female form with particular emphasis on the perfect form of their butts. We see the meticulous care taken by those involved in stage lighting, effects, costumes, choreography, music etc, all for one sole purpose viz. to showcase the best erotic spectacle in the world; we see their ideal, their desire for perfection, their enthusiasm, their ideals, their devotion, their dedication and their frustration. We see what goes on to make up the shows not only from the point of view of the dancers but what the such shows mean to the photographer, the promoters, the project manager, the lighting engineer, the sound engineer and technicians and of course, the customers. It's a fairly comprehensive look. We also see the nitty gritty of running the club, in existence since 1951: the bar, the champagne ice bucket , the tables, the seats, the entrance, the posters, the booking, the cleaning up as well as snippets of the relevant shows.
There is a constant need to create new shows for each season along with the classic crowd drawers. We see how they strive to showcase the beauty of female forms in all sorts of stage settings, stage lighting as well as all conceivable ways of displaying feminine curves in all kinds of suggestive postures and movements from pole dance in solo or duo or groups or the more traditional can cans as well as tap dancing by two men. We see how young hopefuls are auditioned and how those involved discuss their bodies as if they were works of art ,.
The pace of the film is brisk. To give depth to the film, we are also shown how the artistic director Ali Mahdavi, is interviewed, how and why he chose to work for the Crazy Horse, his role in the production, his concern about creating new effects, his relation to the director and his professional concern about how the girls would look and how to display their natural beauty. Through his mouth, we learn of his infectious drive for beauty and how he feels and what he thinks about what he is doing and how some of the girls would work very hard at their dance movements and improve and how some merely rely upon their natural good looks. According to him, the French government should make it obligatory for secondary school student to attend their show for their education.
What delights me most is the camera work, which simply takes one's breath away. It is literally a kaleidoscope of the most beautiful use of the different kind of lighting and color on the screen and the most exquisite combination of geometrical forms with the curves of female bodies, a veritable feast of colors and forms. The film ends the way it begins, with a shadow show of the same pair of hands, which finishes by projecting on the screen the black shadow of a bird flying away. It was simply delicious.
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