The Red Shoes (紅菱艷) Review

童話課作業

Dec 13, 2013

紅菱艷超好看！甩黑天鵝十條街=-=好吧我不喜歡黑天鵝太假了。

Moira Shearer很正，且本職正是芭蕾舞者。電影籌備當時為了找到會演戲、樣貌又美麗的舞者劇組想必費盡心思。Shearer是06年逝世的（每次看完老片就喜歡去調查演員生卒年的我還真是浪費生命在沒用的事物上啊）......然後如此這般經過十年可能我腦中就會有了大數據怎樣特質的演員早死。想去蒙地卡羅玩了，富豪求帶走。【這是屬於二十世紀的浪漫！】【話說《蝴蝶夢》裡男女主角一開始相遇也是在蒙地卡羅呢。】

其實我的確去過。Monte Carlo小不攏咚的地方不到一天就可以逛完。一邊逛一邊哼唱I've Never Been To Me特別有感覺。也許以後有錢的話再去一次吧。

Dec 16, 2013

The Red Shoes is a ballet movie which tells the story of a young and upcoming ballerina, Victoria Page, who became famous after her performance in the show, “The Red Shoes.” The plot basically went around these three characters: Boris Lermontov, Julian Craster, and of course Page. While working together for “The Red Shoes,” Victoria and Julian, the composer, fell in love with each other. Their romance soon went public and it angered Lermontov, stirring unexpected troubles in their triangle.

From the beginning, Lermontov was the character that puzzled me most, for the movie seemed to be relentlessly emphasizing on how heartless and unfathomable he was. From the way he was introduced as the man who hid behind a curtain at the beginning, we did not know who he was but we could assume it was someone important. Later we realized that Lermontov was the impresario of the ballet company. He seemed to know a lot of people and a lot of people seemed to, or at least claim to, know him, but he always treated them with a sense of aloofness. Even when Victoria first came to the company, he didn’t look like he could care for her at all.

For me, this whole detachment changed since “The Red Shoes.” The way he told Victoria to think of it as doing it for him, and his jealousy over Julian……he may have started to see Vicky as his soul-mate. Throughout the film, there were, more than once, conversations between Lermontov and Vicky regarding the issue of art versus life. I am certain Lermontov was desperate to see in her the same passion he held for ballet. From this point of view, it was not so hard to understand why he felt betrayed when he realized that Vicky was dating the composer and was about to get married. He had by then fallen in love with her, but wasn’t in a way people might expect from films. It wasn’t “human” love but rather a more spiritual, artistic kind of love.

Towards the end, Julian even pointed out that Lermontov was jealous of Vicky, and Lermontov admitted it. I think because he probably sacrificed his personal life (and close relationships with people) earlier for ballet, he was jealous of Vicky’s ability and freedom to embrace mortal love. People with low self-esteems often defend themselves with pride and appear to be egotists, and jealousy is an emotion that always, always stems from a low self-esteem. This explains why he punched in the mirror. He probably felt so angry about himself for “caring,” something he hadn’t done for a long time.

On another note, I think this movie reminds me of the “metafiction” genre. (It also seems to be an inspiration for Black Swan but was better than Black Swan in my opinion.) I remember when Julian asked how the play ended, Lermontov replied, “Of course, she died!” and that was what happened with Vicky. Although unlike the girl in “The Red Shoes,” she didn’t let fame and vanity go all over her head, it was still a tough decision for her to choose between her dancing career and her husband. As for Julian, he was alright. The way he went to Vicky before a performance and threatened to leave was admittedly very selfish (I mean, he could’ve waited until the show’s over), but even if he didn’t, the dilemma between them will emerge sometime. I get that the directors wanted the situation to be as drastic as possible, and Vicky, when torn between the two “loves” of her life- love for ballet and love for Julian- commit suicide.