Summary
The Ballet Lermontov company arrives in Monte Carlo. Vicky looks like a princess against the country's gorgeous hilly landscape, and thanks to the company's status, she is treated like royalty. She wanders through the hills and gardens, and eventually arrives at Lermontov's office. She has been called in, alongside Julian and Grischa Ljubov. Lermontov announces that his company is preparing a new ballet, and wants to cast Vicky as the principal dancer. However, he notes that his colleagues do not share his faith in her, indicating that she has a lot to prove when she takes on the new role. He suggests that she go straight to bed, and wishes her luck. Outside, she finds Julian, who she learns is set to write the music for the new ballet, an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Red Shoes.
Rehearsals for the ballet begin. Ivan Ivanovich, Vicky's dance partner, suggests that she is "putting too much into it," but Grischa Ljubov encourages her to continue. She struggles somewhat, but her dancing is ultimately stunning, and her immense dedication is visible as she continues to work through the challenges. Lermontov watches the rehearsal, approving of Vicky's performance. The overwhelming aura in Monte Carlo is one of glamour: Lermontov's work is celebrated and his dancers enjoy a life of luxury and prestige. However, he continues to rule with an iron fist, constantly pushing everyone involved in the production to be better. He demands that Vicky eat all of her meals in isolation, accompanied by Julian as he plays the musical score so that she may better learn it.
What Lermontov doesn't realize is that, by shutting the two in together, he has created a potential obstacle to his own ambition for total control: Vicky and Julian develop a quick affinity, with the potential for future love. One evening in Monte Carlo, Julian encounters Vicky on a balcony—a surefire location for romance—and the two bond over their new roles in the upcoming production. They begin to fall in love, but attempt to keep their relationship out of Lermontov's view. Increasingly obsessed with controlling Vicky, Lermontov accidentally stokes her relationship with Julian by forcing the two to spend more and more time together to prepare for the ballet's premiere.
The final dress rehearsal begins, signaled by a note from Ljubov, who writes that the rehearsal will begin promptly at 9:30am and warning the dancers "not to make any dinner dates": it's going to be a long day. Vicky continues to struggle a bit, occasionally missing a step or needing to adjust her shoes as she performs. However, on the whole, her dancing is impressive, and her passion is visible as she performs. However, she and Julian experience some tension: he feels that she is rushing through the moves and not dancing in line with the music, and he argues with her from the orchestra pit.
A pair of elegantly gloved hands flips through a program for the opening night of The Red Shoes. Vicky is in her dressing room, assisted by a couple of costumers as she nervously rushes to apply the finishing touches to her dress and makeup. Julian pops his head in to wish her good luck, and reneges on the harshness that he established during rehearsal: "Dance whatever tempo you like, I'll follow you!", he good-naturedly calls to her. Julian, Lermontov, and several dancers run about backstage, nervously exchanging calls of good luck. Lermontov walks onstage to thunderous applause, and Julian begins conducting as Vicky prepares to enter.
Despite Julian's self-assurance, most members of the company are nervous before the performance. The male principal dancer, already in costume as the shoemaker, realizes that the titular pair of red shoes are missing. He enlists Lermontov's help to find them, but soon remembers he hid them himself. Everyone yells in French as set pieces are quickly arranged. Vicky encounters Lermontov, and nervously confesses to him that she can't remember her first entrance. However, he reassures her, reminding her that she has no need to be nervous and encouraging her by repeating that he believes in her. He entreats her to dance with the same ecstasy that she embodied the first time she performed for him. With that, the music escalates as Lermontov takes his seat in the audience, and the show begins.
The first performance of the finished ballet is shown in full, a 15-minute diversion from the film's main narrative thread in which the audience watches The Red Shoes—the ballet within the film—as though they were in attendance at the performance. Vicky stars in the ballet as a young woman who admires a mysterious pair of red pointe shoes, crafted by a sinister-looking local shoemaker. She dreams of wearing the shoes, and is delighted when she finally acquires them. While wearing the shoes, she gives the most stunning performance of her life, dancing gleefully and with more energy than ever before. However, she soon becomes tired, and as she tries to remove the shoes from her feet, finds that she cannot. The shoes are magical, and can't be removed. Increasingly distressed, the girl keeps dancing in the shoes, until she eventually dies of exhaustion. Her lover leans over her dead body and finally removes the shoes, but it's too late.
Analysis
This part of the film sets the groundwork for Vicky and Julian's romance, depicting the early moments of euphoria that precede their later troubles. Crucially, it is Lermontov who brings them together, hiring the two for the company and encouraging them to work together in such close capacity—a decision that he will soon regret. At this point, however, Lermontov isn't concerned about Vicky and Julian spending too much time together: instead, he is fixated on ensuring that the ballet will premiere flawlessly, blind to the longer-term impacts of his pushing Vicky and Julian together. The intensity of his creative control pays off when the ballet premieres: it is extremely well-received by audiences within the film, and plays stunningly to the viewer.
Lermontov continues to appear as a benevolent, artistically brilliant figure whose manipulative tendencies are masked by his staggering artistic talent. He maintains equanimity throughout the hectic rehearsal process and, along with Julian, is one of the only people not to be frenzied with nerves on opening night. Given that Lermontov is positioned as an ultimately benevolent leader for this first half of the film, the viewer is likely to feel a greater sense of sympathy towards him when he becomes controlling and cynical about love. The film is structured such that his character begins shifting about halfway through, revealing his darker side after the opening night of The Red Shoes. Up until this point, however, he is basically likable, only occasionally foreshadowing his eventual turn towards tyranny.
Likewise, Julian's character changes a lot around this point in the movie. Up until opening night, although he and Vicky have had some rapport, they also experience tension. Although the work of each is necessary to the other's, they are also quite competitive, and become frustrated with what they perceive as each other's inadequacy during moments of frustration in rehearsal. The tension between their arts will be rehashed later in the film, when, following their marriage, Julian continues composing but is uncomfortable with Vicky's desire to continue to dance. However, right before opening night, some of this tension seems to dissipate as Julian tells Vicky she can dance at whatever pace she likes. This demonstrates the fundamental goodheartedness underlying his artistic intensity, suggesting that although he is talented and demanding, he can compromise more easily than Lermontov.
The decision to include a full, uninterrupted 15-minute ballet in the film highlights the splendor of the performance: rather than simply rushing through the production in a quick montage sequence, Powell and Pressburger halt the film's narrative to depict the dance in great detail. The resulting sequence was deemed by Time Magazine one of the greatest dance sequences in film history, and it's easy to see why: in addition to being gorgeously performed by Moira Shearer (a dancer before she was an actress), the scene involves the use of several special effects that were revolutionary for the cinema of the time. In one moment, the shoes magically lace up on Vicky's feet, a victory of creative stop-motion animation that comes across as sheer magic. Later in the performance, she dances with a partner who transforms from a man into a newspaper and back into a man again. Half a century later, the effect is still magical, leaving contemporary audiences wondering how such an effect could possibly have been achieved before the days of digital cinema and AfterEffects.
The dance scene is also central because it is prophetic: it represents a young woman whose initial love of dancing is worn down as she's forced to continue, becoming exhausted and eventually dying at the hand of a once-glamorous task. Conspicuously, the film shares its title with the ballet, leaving the viewer to wonder: will Vicky meet a similar fate as her initially coveted position at the Ballet Lermontov drags on?
