BOLERO

★★★ ½

(PG) 121 minutes

Like most biopics these days, Anne Fontaine’s Bolero focuses on a particular period rather than trying to cram an eventful life into two hours. Although it frequently flips back and forth in time, leaving you trailing in its wake, its main interest is the tortuous lead-up to composer Maurice Ravel’s decision to settle on Bolero ’s propulsive rhythm and repeat the same sequence seventeen times.

While much of his life was carried on in public, Ravel remains a mysterious figure. Fontaine’s research has led her to the conclusion that we can know him only through his music. A slight, boyish man with a handsome face and an air of remoteness, he had a close circle of women friends among the writers and artists of Bohemian Paris between the wars, yet he had n

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