Red Shoes, Black Mask
****
Red Shoes, Black Mask
Directed by Akela Sounder
Review by Neil Willcox
“People can’t tell you the truth with words, even if they want to,” says choreographer Anna Copeland (Elena Anderson), putting this film’s thesis statement on screen. “If you want to know what they mean you have to dance with them.”
Donna (Anne Gudrensdottir) is an aspiring dancer, who is brilliant despite her partying lifestyle. Her roommate Margot (Sophia Dupont) works harder but is not as good, being held back by Donna’s lax approach to sleep, diet, practice and exercise. Their troupe performs as part of a city festival in public spaces and in studios, in masks and robes and garish body suits. As all the dancers have much the same androgynous body type it becomes hard to tell who is who – until their dance identifies them. The group draw admirers who seem a little too fanatical in picking dancers out and mixing performers with their characters in the story.
The story they dance is one of obsession, love and revenge, the same basic plot moving in time. A Babylonian priestess dances and a prince courts her; jealous when she chooses another she’s killed and the prince hunted down. A nobleman courts a ballerina, she prefers not to be his mistress; again she is killed and in turn the nobleman killed. A disco diva is pursued by a wealthy real estate heir… a theme emerges for the observant.
Despite strange events and odd accidents Donna and Margot go to a party; someone is watching them. Margot performs badly the next day, stays late practicing. Donna goes out alone meets a mysterious masked dancer. The two perform a dance – and if you’re the one who goes to your horror films for the choreography, then this is the scene for you.
The next morning Donna doesn’t make it to rehearsal. Margot gets a call. She’s in a coma in hospital. She’s covered in bandages; they think she may never wake up. Margot tries out for Donna’s role as Jester in the medieval version but they bring in another dancer, the notoriously vain Rudolf (Karl Gale). They dance, masked, with Margot as his consort. Afterwards Rudolf is found unconscious in a dressing room.
Margot is stalked by the mysterious dancer and she stalks them in turn. Masking up and joining celebrations fill the streets. The words cannot tell the truth, so she will read the dance. But so can whoever she’s following as they begins the dance of death.
Or so the film tells us. You can dance in a sinister manner, or at least with the lighting and the camera work and the music you can. Is the dance a gimmick? If it is a gimmick it’s one that connects plot, theme and action, one that both the characters and filmmakers think is one of importance.
Of deadly importance.
Yet this review is words, and so cannot tell the truth.
Click Here to see this review performed as an interpretive dance
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