Le Grand Jete shows incest in an almost positive light
Le Grand Jete means big leap, a ballet term. This subtitled German film is about a ballet instructor who makes a life changing big leap with her estranged son. The film begins by focusing on the crippling effects that a lifetime of extreme training has taken on body of Nadja (Sarah Grether). The only thing that gives her life meaning is ballet and she drives her students hard, like she drives herself.
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When she visits her mother, she is reunited with her son. A son she let her mother raise so she could pursue her dreams of being a professional ballerina. She has recently returned from overseas, to continue the ballet traditions as a respected instructor in her hometown. Her son is a young adult, getting ready to start college. Nadia is probably in her mid to late 30s with a ticking biological clock, she wants to establish a relationship with him, just as he is ready to leave the nest.
The film takes a strange art-nouveau twist as we learn that the son Mario engages in extreme feats of physical endurance (like his mom). After his “show”, they go back to the home he still shares with her mother, his grandmother. There, le Grand Jete, truly begins as Nadja asks if she can touch, his prize winning, most endurant body. He is absolutely unreserved in his response, as she remains very much a stranger, a celebrity of sorts, more a curiosity than his mother.
Nadja moves in with her family and continues to get to know her son. The physicality of their personalities defines as well their relationship. Their relationship knows no boundaries, much to the disapproval of her mother. Quickly Nadja becomes pregnant and Mario stays on until after she safely delivers. With the birth of her daughter, Nadja is finally happy, and has a new purpose in life. The movie, le Grand Jete, ends when she releases her son from his commitment to find his own path.
