1948 romantic drama directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
The eccentric, obsessive and controlling Boris Lermontov, owner of the most prestigious ballet company, hires Victoria Page as a dancer, and Julian Craster as a conductor, with the mission to finish a composition based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, with which he plans to make Victoria one of the most famous and prestigious dancers.
The film tells a story of romantic conflict, the dispute between love and ambition, of a woman who is in the middle of two capricious men who desire her differently, and in which The Red Shoes play a role as an element of discord for everyone involved.
The ballet, as an important part of the story, is well treated by the directors, who did not hesitate to include a captivating fifteen-minute uninterrupted dance scene in which the film's central ballet takes place.
The Red Shoes features Anton Walbrook as the millionaire owner of the ballet company who is absorbed in his obsessions, Moira Shearer as a young aristocrat with a passion for dance and Marius Goring as a talented composer and conductor.
At the beginning the film takes the time it considers appropriate to introduce its characters and to build the central conflict that gradually builds in front of the viewer’s eyes, but without the characters being able to prevent it, and for two hours and thirteen minutes the film immerses you in its story, in a world with beautiful interior and exterior locations, a world of music and dance to which its characters want to belong, but a world that has its rules, rules jealously imposed by Lermontov, and if they want to belong to his world, they have to respect his rules, or they will be left out.
The film, nominated for five Academy Awards, of which it won two: Best Original Score and Best Art Direction, was filmed in Technicolor format, which is why its image looks the way it is characteristic of this type of format, later a digital restoration of the film was also made, where the result was significantly improved, refining the image in detail.
With choreography by Robert Helpmann and music by Brian Easdale, The Red Shoes is a quite enjoyable film that is certainly worth seeing.
Let me know in the comments what you think of the film, and if you haven’t seen it yet, let me know if you’d be interested in seeing it or why you’d rather see something else.
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