Dance of the Damned

Movies: The Red Shoes, Fish Tank

This entry is about two films in which a character's passion for dancing is central to the plot. In one film, dancing destroys the character; in the other, it saves her.

The Red Shoes

This technicolor marvel, a clear ancestor and inspiration to Aronofsky's Black Swan, is an intense film about all-consuming passion. A young, ambitious ballerina, Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), becomes caught in the web of Boris Lermontov, the extremely demanding head of a ballet company. Lermontov promises to make Vicky a star--the prima donna ballerina of the world. But in return he demands that her entire life revolve around dance. In fact, he demands that her life be dance.


On the set of a production of The Red Shoes--a ballet based on a fairy tale by Hans Christen Anderson about a girl who falls in love with a pair of red dance shoes, only to find that she cannot remove them and the shoes force her to dance to her death, Vicky meets Julian Craster, a talented composer who Lermontov has also taken under his wing. As time goes by, the two fall in love, which is unacceptable to Lermontov. Despite his interference and attempts to thwart their relationship, Vicky and Julian are married and Vicky leaves the company...

...But The Red Shoes is not a film that shows love triumphant. In fact, it is a film that shows how two men unwittingly destroy a woman by demanding she give up her life for both of them. Julian's work doesn't allow for Vicky to dance--at least not at the level she is capable of. And though Lermontov could help Vicky blossom to full potential, he does not allow her room to follow any other passions--including romantic love.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The climax has the two men attempting to force Vicky to give up one of her passions for the other: Lermontov has offered to let her dance the lead in The Red Shoes once more, if only she will leave Julian. Julian tries to convince her to leave Lermontov's company for good and dance anywhere else. It seems as though Vicky chooses Lermontov: she walks towards the stage, visibly wracked with emotional pain. But her red shoes have another idea, and soon she is running to the balcony and throwing herself into the path of an oncoming train. A bit dramatic, yes, but emotionally effective.

/SPOILERS

Moira Shearer's performance as a woman torn between two men, both who want her body and heart completely, with no regard for the woman herself, is magnificent. Transcendent. The closeup shots of her face, covered in sweat or streaked with tears, make your heart break for her. She has, not surprisingly, an intensely physical performance, and she carries it off beautifully. Her body is less an object and more an instrument that conveys joy, agony, and insanity.

The Red Shoes is a visually stunning and emotionally intense film. In Black Swan, Natalie Portman plays a ballerina who becomes a prisoner of her own mind, with her perfectionism and hallucinations driving her to a mental breakdown. In The Red Shoes, Shearer is a prisoner of both external circumstances (Julian and Lermontov who both must have her) and her own heart.

5 out of 5 stars

Fish Tank

Andrea Arnold's film Fish Tank is equally visually beautiful and emotionally wrenching, but shows dance as an escape and a salvation for the heroine. Filmed in the slums of Essex, England, Fish Tank stars Katie Jarvis (an unknown when she was cast) as Mia, a poor 15 year old girl with an awful home life: Dad isn't in the picture, Mom is an immature drunk with boyfriends who come and go, and Sister is a a cigarette smoking, drinking 11 year old who calls Mia a "cunt". Yet, despite living in these dehumanizing conditions, Mia is a smart girl who qualifies for private boarding school and who has a secret passion...for hip-hop dancing. During the day she steals away to an abandoned apartment and dances to Nas, Ja Rule, and a bunch of other hip hop artists I'm not cool enough to know.

But Mia's life is thrown for a loop when Mom brings home a new guy, Connor (the devilishly sexy Michael Fassbender), who encourages Mia's dancing and acts half like a big brother and half like the really creepy, kinda flirty older man he is.



Fish Tank has two shocks. One you know is coming and the other you have no fucking idea. You can Wikipedia the movie is you want to spoil it, but I recommend just seeing the movie because it's an unbelievably fantastic film.

Through it all, Mia's love for dance allows her to have a focus within the chaos of her life. At the end of the film she makes a decision that potentially changes the course of her life and ends the movie on a hopeful note. Even though this decision doesn't relate directly to dancing, it's clear that this passion she has makes her realize that she is more than her used up mom and her shitty life in the projects. Hip hop dancing gives her something to hold to in less than ideal circumstances.

Fish Tank features many brave performances. Clearly, Michael Fassbender, whose performance as man who both helps a young girl and takes advantage of her, is a risk. My friend and I expressed exasperation at this film since Fassbender, being so damn attractive, is hard to hate even though he does some awful things. But it's that ambiguity--is he a good guy, or a bad guy?--that gives his performance a sense of realism. And Katie Jarvis, who was cast right off the street, has enough anger, and naivete, and passion to fill an entire tenement building.

I implore you, Readers, go out and find Fish Tank. It's not the kind of movie you see everyday.

5 out of 5 stars