The Red Shoes
d. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948
I will begin this review with a warning. I just got home from watching Powell and Pressburger's masterpiece The Red Shoes in a luminous 35-mm transfer at the Museum of Fine Arts; meaning that perhaps part of what I loved so much about the movie (I had seen it before at home) has to do with the very experience of watching it in a theatre.
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the film are its lush colors, from the opening sequence to the heartbreaking final reel. Technicolor doesn't get much better or more vibrant than in The Red Shoes, and it doesn't hurt that Powell and Pressburger are wonderful filmmakers not relying on style over substance (as a lot of directors of the time did).
The Red Shoes tells the story of a ballerina, Victoria Page (the charming Moira Shearer); it follows her as she becomes famous with her performane in the title ballet, and as she must choose between her love of dance (and her loyalty to the producer that made her famous, Lermontov [Anton Walbrook]) and the love of her life, young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). Though the story of the film is pretty straightforward - basically what I described above - The Red Shoes never feels like anything less than extraodinary, it carries the audience from one breathtaking scene to the next. It is certainly more exhilarating than most movies I have seen.
As hard as it would be for me to nail down what I love most about The Red Shoes so much, it is probably the way the title ballet (which itself takes up a brilliant 17-minute scene) then becomes the story of the movie in microcosm. For those not familiar with Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes," it follows a girl who comes across the red shoes and finds that they can make her dance. At first, everything is great, but the shoes themselves never tire, and she dances herself to death.
The Red Shoes has a lot to say about the relation between the artist and his art, it seems to suggest that the very passion that drives Vicky to be such a great dancer is ultimately what destroys her; that and the pressure of Lermontov and Julian. As a life-affirming examination on the very reason we go to the movies, The Red Shoes is fantastic; as a beautiful movie and a brilliant piece of filmmaking, it's nearly unparalleled.
