DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Whether you loved Black Swan and want some more intensely dramatic ballet-based filmmaking, or hated it and would like to see something a little less horrific on the subject matter, you should take the time to head up to the AFI this week for The Red Shoes. Arguably the definitive work from the writing/directing/producing team of Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger, the film was so unusual and daring when it was released in 1948 that it was a failure. It was so visionary, however, that it’s now cited frequently on lists of the best films of all time, particularly those made by filmmakers themselves. They’re drawn to its incredible visual compositions and set pieces that might otherwise be described as balletic — were it not a little redundant in this context. But there’s also the unprecedented way in which Powell and Pressburger blended the colorful drama that would come to typify cinematic musicals with subject matter that was as dark as the Hans Christian Andersen tale on which this story is loosely based.
Like Black Swan, this is a story within a story, with the backstage drama running somewhat in parallel with the plot of the ballet the dancers are performing in: a ballet adaptation of Andersen’s The Red Shoes. Powell & Pressburger cast the young ballet dancer Moira Shearer in the lead, in her first film role, choosing to use — as with much of the rest of the cast — experienced dancers who could also act, rather than the other way around. She plays the star of the new show, but falls in love with the show’s composer, something that is strictly forbidden by the company leader, and is forced to make tough choices between love and her career.
There are few films that can match this for lush visuals and the necessity to see them on as big a screen as possible. Take advantage of these AFI screenings of a brand new 35mm print to do exactly that.
View the trailer.
Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week at the AFI.
