These Violent Delights is the youngest and most passionate Romeo and Juliet I have seen. Its approach to this familiar story feels so fresh that it marks the arrival of a new generation.
No matter how many times I watch Romeo and Juliet, it still moves me. Even knowing the ending, I feel the excitement of the lovers’ first meeting and the sadness of a brief misunderstanding that leads to tragedy. The story is familiar to many audiences, having appeared in many forms of live performance and been adapted for film several times. As the period, setting and actors change, this old love story returns with a different face. Among its many versions, These Violent Delights is the youngest and most passionate Romeo and Juliet I have seen. Its approach to this familiar story feels so fresh that it seems to mark the arrival of a new generation.
These Violent Delights is co-directed by Christopher Hampson and Oscar Sansom, and made by Scottish Ballet in association with Forest of Black. It premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 14 August and arrives in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 October. The partnership between Hampson, a former ballet dancer and Scottish Ballet’s Artistic Director, and Sansom, known for his work in music films, helps explain the film’s character. The dancers’ bodies lead the story, while the camera and editing give their movements speed and depth. Ballet, cinema and music video come together naturally on screen.
The film begins where tragedy has already struck. Juliet wakes in a space surrounded by daggers, spilt poison and Romeo’s body. Then time moves backwards. Moving between memory and hallucination, Juliet returns to the moments that brought them here. Rather than watching events unfold in order, the audience enters the story through Juliet’s troubled mind. The death we have already seen casts a shadow over the scenes of love and first meetings that follow. As the two lovers grow closer, the opening image becomes even more painful.
The most important lines remain as narration, while other feelings and situations are expressed through the body and choreography. The way a character approaches another, reaches out, turns away, accepts, or rejects another person’s movement replaces dialogue. The characters and events are reduced, but the main course of Shakespeare’s tragedy remains: conflict between two families, love, misunderstanding and death. The familiar plot lets the audience focus on how the story becomes movement and image, rather than spending energy following explanations.
The choice to follow Juliet’s point of view also shapes the way the family spaces are shown. The Capulet and Montague dining tables look alike. The two rival families trap the young characters within their pride and expectations. Juliet faces a future built around marriage to Paris, while Romeo also struggles to find a comfortable place within his family’s rules. The beautifully decorated houses and rooms are a pleasure to look at, but they do not remove the discomfort felt by the people inside them. The neat surroundings and uneasy movements create tension between the families’ outward elegance and the pressure they place on their children.
Away from these family spaces, the two lovers meet at the queer club The Apothecary. Created in a reclaimed, abandoned building, it is led by the drag Sisters Laurence and Giovanna. The word associated with the seller of poison in the original play becomes the name of a place where young people can express themselves and have their love blessed. This change gives the story a clear connection to the present. Beyond the family table, where others decide whom they should love, there is a community that accepts the relationships they choose for themselves.
Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting in the club is one of the film’s most beautiful moments. Their eyes meet in a space filled with neon light, music and moving bodies. The scene is full of youthful, free-spirited energy, yet their attraction is impossible to hide. The heat of the club surrounds their meeting, while their movements create an intimate rhythm of their own, different from those around them. The first encounter in this old tragedy comes alive again in a night-time setting that young people today might recognise.
Kayla-Maree Tarantolo as Juliet and Ishan Mahabir-Stokes as Romeo bring subtle acting to their precise movements. A dancer’s body can give feelings a large physical shape, while film can bring us close to the smallest changes in those feelings. Their expressions and looks carry the emotions the choreography creates. The care with which they approach each other, the certainty of falling in love and the anxiety that follows are all conveyed through both body and face.
The fast pace and stylish editing keep the film alive. As the characters’ reality crosses with Juliet’s inner world, some scenes show clear events while others express feelings through symbolic images. The houses, bedrooms and club remain in the memory as spaces with their own colours and textures. The music connects movement and editing, helping to drive the story forward.
These Violent Delights boldly condenses a familiar love story and unfolds its emotions through well-trained bodies and images made with a remarkable visual eye. Within its youthful, stylish imagery, a tragedy we have seen so many times meets the spirit of a new generation, making it moving and painful once again. For those who love the original play, and for those less familiar with ballet, this film offers a deeply engaging encounter.
These Violent Delights arrives in UK and Irish cinemas on October 21.
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