‘In-I In Motion’ review: Juliette Binoche’s directorial debut is account of her 2008 dance-drama

Dir. Juliette Binoche. France. 2025. 156mins

Juliette Binoche’s directorial debut In-I In Motion records the development and the realisation of In-I, a hybrid dance-drama that the French actress devised and performed in 2008 with acclaimed British choreographer and dancer Akram Khan. At a daunting 156 minutes, Binoche’s film combines the sublime and the downright preposterous, as she records a process that catches it all – the agony, the ecstasy, the earnest self-indulgence. You cannot fault the intensity – nor Binoche’s evident talent as a dancer. Yet, as a straightforward and gruellingly over-extended screen venture, In-I in Motion doesn’t yet really suggest what her strengths as a filmmaker might be.

 The two performers grapple with their bodies, their words and their angst

Premiering out of competition in San Sebastian before heading to Busan, the film is most likely to appeal to Binoche devotees and adepts of that hyper-niche genre, the dance film. Even the latter constituency might want to skip the first 90 minutes to get to the meat of what is a bold and distinctive performance. Streaming seems a likely destination.

Those first 90 minutes, however, may be a stumbling block for many; indeed, it would have been fascinating to see a seasoned documentarist give narrative shape to an account of how Binoche and Khan created their performance from scratch. In an opening voice-over, Binoche – speaking English throughout, bar a brief sequence in French – explains that she, who had never danced professionally before, and Khan, who had never acted, decided “to start from nothing; or rather, to start from ourselves.” 

Working up a show from their imaginations, feelings and memories entails them launching themselves into deep psychodrama. Aided by acting coach Susan Batson, the two performers grapple with their bodies, their words and their angst – until you begin to wonder whether you’re actually watching a Christopher Guest spoof of the modern dance world. “I’m scattered! I’m scattered!” Binoche yells repeatedly, flinging her arms out. “Why? Whyyyy?” she and Khan roar at each other, while the wild-haired, super-intense Batson encourages them with cries of “Don’t energise it!” and “Go for the need! Go for the neeeed!”

“It’s bringing me my limits, my fears,” Binoche says, exhausted and frazzled by what feels increasingly like a Primal Therapy workshop. Their process pays off more convincingly when the soft-spoken, thoughtful Khan delivers a monologue exploring race, religion and, it seems, personal memories. The duo’s studio work with rehearsal director Su-Man Hsu – a more pragmatic, level-headed presence – gives a sharper sense of a performance finding its form.

After a succession of sequences using temporary music (Malian guitarist Afel Bocoum, frenetic grunge from Silverchair, a passage of Henryk Gorecki glumness), the finished show, which makes up the film’s final hour, is set to a varied score by Philip Sheppard. Performing in front of a deep red backdrop created by British artist Anish Kapoor, the duo deliver a varied, pacy performance that loosely depicts the vagaries of a relationship between a man and a woman: copious pain and passion, and just a dash of humour, in a sequence evoking farcical sex and domesticity. 

What is surprising about the show’s spoken content is just how uncharacteristically histrionic Binoche is, whereas Khan speaks his passages with a relaxed naturalism. The movement, though, is muscular, kinetic and non-stop: Binoche not only displays formidable stamina, she is also perfectly in control of her moves, in synch with Khan and the show’s often lightning-quick turns. Few people, actors or otherwise, invest themselves quite so whole-heartedly to a momentary side venture – but cinephiles everywhere can perhaps be grateful that Binoche was not tempted to give up the day job.