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

Sometimes you go to a film and you complain about how predictable it is, you saw the whole story laid out in the first ten minutes. When that happens you're not complaining about knowing what is coming, because if you sit down and think about it there are very few movies wherein this is not true. What you're complaining about is either a) you are so bored that you bothered to figure out what was coming or b) you figured out what was coming and then the excution of said plot was so boring and/or lame that it just annoyed you. I mention this because there is a point about 20 minutes into The Red Shoes where the dicatatorial ballet producer Boris Lermontov is explaining the plot outline of Hans Christian Andersen's story to his composer Julian Crastner, and suddenly in a flash the entire movie came to me. I saw every major plot point laid out in front of me, they all came true one by one, and this was still a truly amazing film-going experience because Powell and Pressburger pull it off with such class and style, and the ensemble performances are all beyond first rate. I was mesmerized from the word go, and about the only thing I can say bad about it is that the ending was a little overboard. Especially noteworthy was Anton Walbrook's turn as Lermontov, he kept the part at just the right level, never bursting out of the shell the character kept wrapped tightly around him. It's a great companion to his part as Theo in The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp. I had a lot of sympathy for this character, despite the fact that he is obviously poised as the "bad guy."

As the credits rolled I realized that a month ago I had seen none of the films of these two geniuses, and now I have seen four - three of which I consider masterpieces - and that suddenly this filmmaking team had entered the upper echelon of my favorite filmmakers. I wondered at how long these films had been out there without my having seen them, I wondered at how I could have possibly lived without the booming performances of Roger Livesey or the stunning cinematography of Jack Cardiff, and I wondered how many more of these awe-inspiring discoveries awaited me in the future. The sad truth of being a film buff is that inevitable as you work your way through the masters, these experiences are destined to be fewer and fewer. For now though, goddamn these are some good fucking movies.