The Red Shoes

I can’t remember the exact time I fell in love with ballet but I’m sure the movie The Red Shoes must have had a lot to do with it. I used to watch a lot of old movies in the days before cable/satellite arrived and spent many a Saturday afternoon watching them with my mum. The Red Shoes was one of my all time favourites and I remember being spellbound by it, even if I did think the love part was boring, to my young eyes. Dump those men, Vicky, and keep on dancing!

I’ve waited a long time for the film to come out on DVD and just had to buy it as soon as I read it had been restored. What can I say? I’m used to seeing the old TV broadcasts which were very faded but seeing the movie in all its technicolor glory is just amazing. Not only is the picture clear but the colours are so vivid, particularly Moira Shearer’s beautiful red hair. She was a Scot, don’cha know?

The film has lost none of its magic and when I was a little girl, I lusted after a pair of red ballet shoes. Guess what? I’m still lusting after them. There is just something about ballet shoes that make me fall in love with them.

One thing I noticed, the ballerinas in the film, including Shearer, weren’t exactly stick thin and would’ve probably been classed as fat in this day and age but they were most certainly not. They were healthy and had flesh on their bones. I have a copy of a Russian ballet company doing The Sleeping Beauty and the ballerina playing Aurora is just nothing but skin and bone. You can see the bones of her ribcage sticking out and it is very unattractive. A sad reflection on today’s standards.

The Red Shoes is considered one of the best movies ever made and is held in high regard by the likes of Martin Scorsese who had a hand in the restoration. Apparently, this restoration is just one of many planned to preserve British classics and if this movie is anything to go by, the project is phenomenally important.