Review – The Red Shoes

This is a crucial, early point in the development of several film innovations, not the least among which are the extended dance number and the notion that women might actually like watching movies. But beyond its role in history, this is an interesting movie all on its own. A talented young ballerina is forced to choose between the two loves of her life: dancing and her composer boyfriend. Complicating matters is the sinister impresario who demands that if she is to dance that she devote herself entirely to her art, abandoning all else. The ballet that first makes her famous forms a story-within-a-story (not to mention an elaborate production that lasts somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes), transforming Hans Christian Anderson’s outré tale of evil shoes into an allegory about obsession. Worth seeing