You don't have to believe in Santa Claus to be swept up in the magic of Christmas. By the same token, some of the fairy-tale magic of "George Balanchine's 'The Nutcracker' " has been lost in its translation from a staged ballet into a film, but it doesn't hurt; it is only a fraction. If Rouben Ter-Arutunian's depiction of the Sugarplum Fairy's Palace of Pleasures is obviously a painted stage set, its elegant swirl of domes and pedestals is still gorgeous.

And what is sacrificed in realism is gained in intimacy. In close-up, Karinska's original costumes are even more awesome in their beauty and richness of detail than when seen from afar. And children who watch Emile Ardolino's handsome film version of the New York City Ballet's classic production can be vicarious participants in its Christmas Eve games, folk dances and roughhouse.

The film places you directly under the production's spectacular Christmas tree, which magically grows to be 40 feet tall. And once the tree has reached its full height, the camera mischievously peers down from the top. The intimate perspective also provides a throne's-eye view of the ballet's waltzing snowflakes and whirling candy canes and of its comic giantess, Mother Ginger. And when at the end, the Nutcracker Prince (Macaulay Culkin) and his sweetheart Marie (Jessica Lynn Cohen) soar off in a sleigh, you're there to bid them goodbye.

The movie, which opened today, doesn't spend too much time gazing into people's faces. It is very scrupulous in the way it establishes a mood of participatory excitement, then draws back far enough so that the classic ballet sequences choreographed by Balanchine and staged by Peter Martins can be seen in their full glory. In these sequences, the camera enhances the fluency of the dancing and of the sweeping Tchaikovsky score by slowly, almost imperceptibly floating forward and upward.