The Red Shoes (1948) review
The Red Shoes (1948)
Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Writers: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Stars: Moira Shearer, Marius Goring and Anton Walbroo
Running Time: 134 minutes
Please note there may be spoilers below
The Red Shoes was my favourite movie as a child. My uncle gave me a pirated VHS copy when I was seven and I was enchanted, from the opening scene as a young ballet student attends Saturday morning classes in a church hall. It was the perfect inspiration for a young girl even if I really didn't understand the ending. Watching it now, the film is infinitely darker and much more complex but still completely captures my imagination.
It's a movie that peaks behind the curtain into the domain of a world-renowned ballet company, Ballet Lermontov. Fiction of course, which is just as well as it allows its audience to escape into a world of beauty, art and heartache.
The plot centres on two young aspiring artists, Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) a passionate ballerina desperate to be a professional dancer, and Julian Craster (Marius Goring), a talented composer still at the conservatory.
“The Red Shoes asks the eternal question, can there be real art without love?”
The commissioning of a new ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale the Red Shoes brings the talented young artists together over daily lunches. Craster who composed the music, plays the piano for Page to bathe her in the music in the mere two weeks it takes to bring the ballet to the stage.
The Red Shoes asks the eternal question, can there be real art without love? In other words, should artists use real feelings as inspiration, or merely pretend?
In camp one is Boris Lermontov, the company's director. A man who can create sublime beauty with his ballets but believes that love is utterly incompatible with art. Camp two is Page, an aspiring prima ballerina, who falls madly in love with the widely talented composer and conductor Craster. Love blooms, tempers flare and heart-breaking choices are forced upon the incredible Page by a controlling Director who desires a type of perfection, no matter the cost.
Beyond the ballet, the film is a feast for your eyes. Starring real ballet professionals, it alleviates the need for dance doubles and brings a sense of sincerity that can’t be created by actors who have spent a mere few months learning to imitate a true art form which requires years of intense rehearsals. As the company tours from London to Paris to Monaco, you can't help but be enthralled by how glamorous this world is. The magnificent theatres, the elegant clothes both on and off the stage, and the trains. All this adds to the heightened emotional drama.
The music does not disappoint. Brian Easdale’s score flows as it's intertwined with pieces from real ballets. Adding to a spellbinding world that captures your imagination and takes you to a place that never truly existed.
The Red Shoes, a must watch.
