The Red Shoes

Victoria Page sees her career as a ballerina take off thanks to renowned choreographer Lermontov. Authoritarian and ruthlessly demanding, Lermontov forces Victoria to sacrifice everything to achieve perfection in her art.

Torn between the man she loves and her artistic aspirations, the heroine of this magical and cruel tale is hopelessly headed towards her tragic fate. The culmination of a series of films made by Powell and Pressburger in the 1940s, The Red Shoes redefined the boundaries of cinema as a visual and plastic art and left its mark on the minds of a generation of film fans.

A bitter reflection on the obsessive foundations of creative desire and an astute study of the place of female artists trapped in the dead end of male domination, the film reaches its climax in the middle of the narrative, during a breathtaking ballet sequence unequalled in the history of cinematic musicals.

Achilleas Papakonstantis (UNIL, CEC)