Red Shoes, The (1948)

A two and a half hour film about ballet?

Put any macho-pretensions aside, this is a fantastic film.

The first thing that struck me about the Red Shoes is how many times I’ve seen this plot device used before in other films & TV shows. 

The story is about an ambitious young dancer, Victoria Page (Shearer), who wants to become a celebrated ballet dancer with the Lermontov Ballet Company, headed by the tough and driven Boris Lermontov (Wallbrook).

After proving her worth as a dancer and her mindset of being willing to put aside life and love to succeed, she is installed as prima ballerina and dances ‘The Red Shoes’ to great acclaim.

The Red Shoes tells the story of a girl who is unwittingly sold a pair of red ballet shoes that are cursed and whilst make the girl a fantastic dancer, also have a mind of their own and never want to stop dancing, eventually the girl, ragged and exhausted from dancing, dies, but not before having the cursed shoes removed.

As I said earlier, this plot device has been used in numerous other shows, I think the earliest one I could remember was seeing Sabrina the Teenage Witch where she wants to run fast so gets a pair of magical trainers that make her run fast, but have a mind of their own and don’t want to stop running when she does.

Running parallel to the story of Victoria Page is another young ambitious character, composer Julian Craster (Goring) who like Victoria rises quickly until he eventually falls in love with our main character and they leave the Lermontov Ballet Company after Boris Lermontov becomes jealous of their relationship.

Without going into major spoilers, my one qualm about this film is the ending, when it is suggested that the allegory of the Red Shoes appears to stops becoming a metaphor for her ambition bleeding into obsession and actually becomes that she is wearing a pair of magical cursed red shoes. I found this extremely weak and that the same ending could have been achieved without the overly dramatic climax.

BEST SCENE: Despite the great drama in this picture, the best scene is without question the extended 15 minute ballet performance of The Red Shoes. It is what elevates it from something modern like Black Swan.

BEST CHARACTER: Victoria Page – like the main character from my previously reviewed film, Memento, Victoria Page is a character whose main characteristic is her obsession. She is beautiful, talented, ambitious and ultimately flawed.

BEST QUOTE: Why do you want to dance? Why do you want to live?

RATING:  ★★★★☆  – Without the strange choice of having an actual pair of cursed red shoes, this film would have been a solid five stars. I found the twin stories of Page and Craster and how one is able to ultimately give up his ambition for love and happiness while she cannot extremely interesting and would prefer to think of this as the ending than the extra dramatic bit tagged on. I’d be remiss not to mention that Powell & Pressburger shot this film in glorious Technicolor, rarely have colours seemed as vibrant as they did in The Red Shoes.

MOVIES WATCHED:17
MOVIES REMAINING:984