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The Red Shoes (1948)

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

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3 reviews

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From Time Out London

The story was already old-fashioned in 1948: budding prima ballerina Victoria (Moira Shearer) finds herself torn between the divergent demands of art and heart, as represented by two equally headstrong men – tortured control freak and impresario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and lovelorn composer Julian (Marius Goring). When they put aside their differences and collaborate, they produce work of awe-inspiring beauty, but ultimately the simmering tension between them leads to tragedy.

The realisation that we’re in the presence of genius comes just a few minutes into ‘The Red Shoes’, as a gaggle of eager balletomanes take their places for the inaugural performance of Lermontov’s latest masterpiece. They settle into their seats, the roar around them fades, a cheery onscreen ticker reads ‘45 minutes later…’, and Michael Powell moves us forward in time without even breaking the shot.These quietly radical directorial flourishes can be found throughout the film– and Powell’s entire canon – but what sets this greatest of all British filmmakers apart from the competition is his refusal to thrust his genius in the audience’s face, subsuming his natural showman’s flair to the demands of story and character.

Until the time comes to cut loose, at which point Powell unleashes the most eyepopping visual extravaganza imaginable. Blending impressionist art and expressionist film, blurring the barriers between theatre and cinema, body and camera, reality and dream, drawing equally on the avant-garde and the classical, the centrepiece ballet is a sequence of sheer, reckless transcendence. It’s here that ‘The Red Shoes’ becomes more than the sum of its hoary old parts, taking flight as the crowning glory of our national cinema.

Author: Tom Huddleston

Time Out London Issue 2051, December 10-16, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Fairestisle said...

Posted on Dec 23 2009 02:47 I have a treasured old video of this unique brilliant and beautiful film. It's a work of inspired genius which can take the viewer on a powerful spiritual journey as well as presenting them with a feast of sensual delights. At last the young generation will have the opportunity to discover what real art is.

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Dec 14 2009 08:56 red shoes is ample evidence that you do not need reality or any categorical style as a genre or a label to make a memorable movie which is both popular entertainment and art itself -without being realistic in perspective of the conceived realism and indulging widely and abundantly in an orgy of styles all contrary to each other -as such proving all the travesty of lame logic behind the so-called critical snobbery vacant and void .

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E A Dobson said...

Posted on Dec 12 2009 15:47 Ok i`ve not actually seen the restored version yet,it has been available on dvd for sometime but i had read someones review which said it would recieve a proper cinema release-limited no doubt-and hear it is.I watched my old dvd version about six months ago and although my preference is usually westerns,film noir & Hitchcock,i have to say this is steadily becoming one of my very favourite films.Here`s hoping the restoration comes to Bradford in the new year!

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