Summary:
A young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina.
My Thoughts:
Some of the best films I’ve ever seen have been love letters to the arts; “Amadeus” is a love letter to classical music; “Topsy-Turvy” is a love letter to musical theater; “The Red Shoes” is a love letter to both the ballet and dance. I must admit, though I have been to a few ballet performances (probably more than most in my demographic), the ballet is not an art form that I typically go out of my way to appreciate. I think ballet can be powerfully emotional and wondrously beautiful, but tickets, at least in Grand Rapids, are upwards of $60 a seat, and I am poor and have no one to go with, so it had been a while since I’d just sat and appreciated the beauty of dance, but watching this film made me want to go out and buy a ticket for the next ballet available.
While this movie is a glorious homage to the beauty of dance, it’s also an amazingly realized representation of a stage production, and a wonderful look at the collaborative efforts that go on behind the curtains, giving us great insights into relationships between composer and dancer, dancer and producer, ect. Furthermore, the main plot centers on a heartbreaking story of passion, a pseudo-love triangle, and desires of many that work to influence the fate of one. This film is an emotional rollercoaster of exquisite filmmaking, and I’m honestly just upset I hadn’t gone out of my way to see this sooner.
“Why do you want to dance?” “Why do you want to live?”
Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook, “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”) is a ballet director/producer who runs a prestigious ballet company whom meets Vicky Page (Moira Shearer, “Peeping Tom”), an aspiring ballerina at a party. After Vicky gains Boris’ attention, Boris promises to make her a star, if she promises to live her life as he wishes. Vicky agrees to Boris’ demands, but soon after she joins the company, she finds herself falling in love with a young rising composer named Julian Craster (Marius Goring, “A Matter of Life and Death”), and soon Vicky finds herself torn between the love of her life and her desire to dance.
The beginning of this film is interesting in that it shows how a lot of behind the scenes things are decided; I was reminded greatly of Mike Leigh’s “Topsy-Turvy”, where a fair amount of that film was dedicated to showing how the characters worked together and created. The drama at the beginning comes from characters bickering about how certain things must be done- Julian and Vicky argue about the tempo; Julian and Boris argue about the music; Boris and Vicky argue about hers and Julian’s growing affection for one another. As the bickering continues, however, we see the creative efforts beginning to take shape and form a kind of production that looks to be worth seeing. The middle part of this film, the centerpiece, is their elaborate stage production.
The best part of this film, the thing that I’m sure everyone remembers this film for, is the dance number in the middle, which tells Hans Christen Anderson’s story of The Red Shoes. The Red Shoes tells the fantastical story of a girl who puts on a pair of red shoes and is able to dance beautifully, but once she’s put the shoes on, she can never take them off, and eventually she dies. The sequence lasts for more than fifteen minutes, and is told entirely through dance. While the sequence starts off relatively simply, with a stage set to look like a town, after Vicky puts on the red shoes, the dance number becomes a whirlwind of fantastical images. Vicky is transported from her town into a circus and from a circus to impressionistic background where the man whom gave her the shoes originally seeks her after. From there the sequence gets stranger and even more beautiful as our protagonist dances through what looks like heavenly halls and starry skies, and eventually the sequence ends with Vicky back on stage where she meets her end. That dance sequence was one of the most magical musical numbers I’ve ever seen put to screen; it blows the lengthy final dance number of “Singing in the Rain” out of the water. I was amazed by the sheer amount of costumes and sets in this single musical number, for some of the sets, which were incredibly detailed, were only onscreen for a few brief seconds. While the best part of the film is that dance number in the middle, the final forty-five minutes of the film are just as captivating and tragic as the beginning.
Verdict:
For anyone with any interest in musicals, this is a must see. For anyone with any interest in classic Hollywood, this is a must see. For anyone who calls themselves a cinephile, this is a must see. I honestly can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from watching “The Red Shoes” at least once; magical doesn’t even begin to describe it.
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