Film doesn't dance around revolution

One needs only to read about a new Hollywood black list or to hear the indignation shown against those entertainers objecting to the war in Iraq to know that many people feel art and politics are a dangerous mix.\nAn artist or entertainer who makes political commentary, especially commentary that's against government policy, risks public condemnation. Through the influence of their art, artists may have the power to create social upheaval.\n"The Dancer Upstairs" deals with such insurgency more directly. The film deals not only with the roots of political revolution but also the branches.\nJavier Bardem plays it low-key as Agostin Rejas, a lawyer-turned-police captain struggling for income in the capital of an anonymous South American country. A guerrilla terrorist has incited several politically-motivated bombings, and Rejas has been assigned to track down who it is.\nThe bombings have mysterious origins. Sometimes, the bomber ties a stick of dynamite to a small animal or household pet and drops them in the middle of a public place. Other times, very young children carry out suicide missions. Regardless, the bombings occurs in places both rural and urban and without pattern. Martial law is imminent.\nMeanwhile, Rejas has a wife and daughter at home, neither of whom is to tell anybody what he does. His wife is vapid, hoping for a nose job that the family cannot afford. His daughter is an aspiring ballerina. One day, he meets Yolanda (Laura Morante), his daughter's ballet teacher. She's humble, thoughtful and more compatible than his wife, he finds out.\nThis ultimately leads to a convergence of Rejas's personal and professional difficulties by film's end. Some Dickensian coincidences push along of the involving plot.\nDirected by longtime screen creep John Malkovich, making his directorial debut, and with an adapted screenplay by Nicholas Shakespeare, from his own novel, the film nicely shows how political intrigue can manifest itself. The viewer is not supposed to have a difficult time figuring out whom the terrorist leader is, but instead how he accumulates his network of followers. Malkovich, who knows a thing or two about intense villains, makes the bad guys in this film as intense in thought as in action. \nClearly, this film does not promote anarchy or martial law. These people can have their country back, but it is healthy expression through culture, especially among the innocent, that will have a say whether it happens.