The Red Shoes (1948)

Directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Starring Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Austin Trevor, Robert Helpmann, Ludmilla Tchérina, Esmond Knight, Léonide Massine, Alber Bassermann, Eric Berry, Irene Browne.

In this ballet melodrama, the dialogue is clanging, the acting is wooden, and the storytelling is trite. However, film is a visual medium, and on that level, it’s a minor triumph, generating gorgeous images saturated in the alien brightness of Technicolor (some backdrops and sets even look like oil paintings). Camera movement and light contrast generate the tension in this story loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersson fairytale, with ingénue dancer Shearer torn between her love for music student Goring and her love for stage performance. Much of the cast is composed of dancers who can act okay instead of actors who can dance okay, which makes the clichéd backstage drama practically turgid, but the impressionistic dance pieces soar and scream. The extended surreal dance centerpiece is arguably too detached from the reality of the live performance, but it’s the scene that lingers the longest, even more so than the necessary tragic conclusion. Ballet fanatics are likely to rate this one higher.

68/100