Let’s just get something out of the way.  I can’t dance.  I’m not usually a big fan of watching people dance.  And I tend to get a little uncomfortable at functions where dancing might break out.  We’ve all got our things, and dancing most definitely is not my thing.

Maybe I’m just too self-conscious to let my body go.  I’m too tense to enjoy the act of it all.  I’ve got the requisite rhythm, more or less — I was a drummer back in the day — but my limbs just don’t want to feel the music and boogie down, so to speak.  (My seven-year-old son on the other hand has happy feet.  At the last wedding we attended he spent the entire time rocking out on the dance floor.)

So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that movies about dancing just aren’t that interesting to me.  The new movie trend of attractive young people in difficult situations solving the problems of the team/school/community/world by having a dance-off don’t do much for me.  The old school flicks aren’t much better.  I have little patience for the movie musical.  Saturday Night Fever - blah.  Dirty Dancing - eh - (though I will watch the climactic scene if it is on cable to see if this time maybe someone will put baby in a corner).  With apologies to Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Beals, Footloose and Flashdance - not so much.  (Before you ask, I have also exercised a veto on watching Dancing With the Stars.)

So it is always a bit surprising to me (and yes, I do constantly startle myself) that two of my all-time favorite movies are about ballroom dancing.

Before Baz Luhrmann became world-famous international movie director, he made a charming little film about the Australian ballroom dancing scene.  It was Dirty Dancing redux - ugly duckling falls for dashing star, who teaches her to dance and realizes she’s beautiful - but it could not be a more different film.

While much of the plot is a cliche - let’s just say you know exactly how it is going to end - it is the way it is told that is riveting.  It crackles with life, borders on the surreal, and is funny as hell.  That, and it is one of the few movies that makes me tear up at the climax every time.  Anyone who has seen Romeo+Juliet or Moulin Rouge! knows that Luhrmann likes his visuals liberally sprinkled with jangly insanity.  With a limited budget, he achieves the same mania on Strictly Ballroom without making the viewer dizzy.

Where Strictly Ballroom is an oversized production stuffed into a too-small indie suit, Shall We Dance? is the very definition of a small quiet charming low-budget production.

(We’re talking about the original Japanese film here, not the better-off-forgotten U.S. remake.)

This is the story of stifled man who defies his life, ever so gently, by learning how to dance.  Of course, he is taught by a beautiful woman.  But this movie avoids cliche as deftly as Strictly Ballroom embraces it.  The love story is between the man and his wife, who is equally trapped in modern Japanese society.  The supporting cast is hilarious and poignant, including a flamboyant dancer who hides his persona at work and an overweight klutz who is learning to dance to impress his fiancee.

One other reason I love this movie is that it evokes strong memories of the year I spent in Tokyo.  More than any other movie, this one captures the essence of the Japanese people I knew.  The host family I lived with for a couple of months was similar to the family in the film, including the exuberant daughter.  The salarymen and women who are buttoned up so tight that they are prone to hilariously irrational behavior when given the opportunity remind me of the folks I used to teach English to and work with.  And the setting is not stylized - it is real Tokyo - not neon lights action movie Tokyo.  Layer on listening to the Japanese and I get nostalgic for a place I haven’t been in a while and may not go back to for many more years.

Both of these movies have lots of dancing and talking about dancing and the obligatory dance competition and then some more dancing.  And it is a testament to how good they are that I enjoyed them anyway.  (But I’m still not interested in taking dance lessons.)