The Red Shoes (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)

No, I'm not reviewing this movie again; actually, these two probably couldn't be further apart in every aspect, except for the fact they're both loosely based around the same Hans Christian Andersen story. This The Red Shoes stars Moira Shearer as Victoria Page, a young ballerina who gets an audition with famous company owner Boris Lermontov half through her pluckiness, and half through nepotism. She joins Lermontov's company, and he sees something in her no one else does and makes her the lead in his new ballet, an adaptation of the titular Andersen story. At the same time Victoria is hired, so is young composer Julian Craster, who writes The Red Shoes and becomes as much of a protegee in his field as Victoria does in hers. Of course, Julian and Victoria fall in love, and Victoria has to eventually choose between love and career. Before we get to the melodramatic plot twists of the last hour of the film, there's plenty of absolutely gorgeous dancing to feast your eyes on. I'm not a ballet fan, but even I was hypnotized by Shearer's performance in the ballet-within-a-film, as a young woman who can't take off her haunted red shoes. The costumes and sets are wonderful, and the optical effects (which I was unsure if they were happening onstage or not) give the ballet a surreal, dreamlike feel. But of course, there's the last part of the film, and Victoria's choice between dancing (and Boris, although he doesn't show any real physical/sexual attraction to Victoria, just a possessiveness of her talent) and love (and Julian, whom I just found creepy and disconcerting the whole film for some reason). Of course -- this is 1948, of course -- a woman can't have both, and the only reason she can't is because Julian won't let her. That's right -- he leaves the opening of his opera to berate her for performing after a long absence in Monte Carlo. Boris asks Victoria if Julian would give up his love of music for her, and she (as well as we) know the answer. If there's ever been an example of a woman forced to give up her ambitions to be a perfect wifey, this is it. And then, instead of choosing dancing like I hoped she would, Victoria throws herself off a bridge in order to ensure she would never dance again. And then, she doesn't even die, just breaks her legs and asks Julian to take the red shoes off of her. Vomit rose in my throat. Could this have been any more obvious? Sure, Boris is trying to control Victoria as well, but there were certainly situations where she could have been a dancer and not under the control of either of these men. But his is 1948, so of course not. Barf again. So this movie was ruined for me by the last 15 minutes, but if you can swallow that, it's a beautiful movie about dancing. 7/10

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Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)

In today's film climate, it's hard to conceive of a film ending a director's career for reasons other than commercial failure. But Michael Powell's career did effectively end with Peeing Tom, his 1960 thriller starring Carl Boehm as a would-be filmmaker who literally kills with his camera. A review on IMDB compared the furor over this film to that if, today, Steven Spielberg made a graphic film about pedophilia. The film, even today, is shocking in its stark portrayal of obsession and violence, even though there is nothing gory about it. Boehm is stunning as Mark Lewis, a pathologically shy young cameraman who dreams of becoming a filmmaker. His young neighbor Helen enters his life on a whim and becomes enamored with him, allowing him to let his guard (and camera) down in some situations, but he becomes more obsessed in others. In his secret life, Mark has been killing women and filming their moment of death. Through archival footage of his own family, we find out that Mark's father (played by Powell), a scientist, did cruel and disturbing experiments on the nature of film on his son as a child, something that profoundly scarred the man. The more we find out about Mark, the more we deeply pity yet despise him, a paradoxical mix of emotions that muddles what might otherwise be a clear-cut moral story. Peeping Tom was released the same year as Psycho, which became the more famous of the films. Hitchcock was hailed while Powell was shunned. But looking back on the two films today, because of Tom's obscurity, it still retains a definite shock value, and leaves the viewer unsettled, whereas Psycho has become ingrained in popular culture so that its shocks mean nothing anymore. Powell, one of the finest filmmakers of his generation, made a daring and brilliant film, full of horror and beauty (the colors and overall cinematography are stunning), that deserves to be seen. 9/10

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