| Overall Grade: |
C |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
C |
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|
| Direction: |
C |
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|
| Visuals: |
B |
|
|
For Dance Fans Only
by Matt (movies profile)
Oct 27, 2007
Han Christian Andersen’s tale The Red Shoes, first published in 1845 has inspired movies (including this one), a Broadway play, an album, an episode of The Twilight Zone and an attraction at a Dutch amusement park just to name a few. About a girl that receives a pair of red shoes that makes her want to dance, but the shoes never want to stop, even at the demise of the wearer.
What Pressburger / Powell have done with the story is made the world that all little girls want to grow up in. All of the dancers are straight and date the ballerinas, the prima ballerina dances in fantastic locations like Monte Carlo, London and Paris. Is this what the life of ballet was like in Europe in the late forties? Probably not, but certainly the image that they wanted out to their audience both in 1948 and 2007.
It is interesting that the fantasy survives the past sixty years and is present today (see 2000’s Center Stage). I think All that Jazz (1979) is a more accurate picture of what it is like to be a professional dancer.
If you enjoy ballet, you will find this a beautiful movie (If you cannot get your boyfriend off the couch to torment him at the ballet, than rent this as a good substitute. No tux but it will be excruciating for non-dance fans). |
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