1. The special quality of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger movies
• Blacknarcissus and The Red shoes. Obviously, they are difference they are in colour and they are not realistic. They don’t follow realist. It is escapistsm, expressionist, fantasy. They aren’t the normal kind of British cinema. They are exotic, their aim was to help the audience get away from their everyday life not showing them everyday life of post war Britain but take them to somewhere new and colourful place. Nevertheless, underneath that I suggest that they are still a very strong message that very similar to other British film in those period is that women have a choice they can choose to be Sister Clodaght or Sister Ruth and in the end Sister Ruth put on red dress which express her desire, she wants personal satisfaction and happiness and what happened to her is that she fall over the cliff and died. This is what happened when the women don’t control their desire
• The red shoes, Vicky has to choose. She wants to be a bullet start but she also wants to be Julian’s wife and she married Julian and she gave up her career but then after a couple of year her desire to follow her career take her back to Lermontov’s ballet. She’s torn between the 2 desires. She puts on the red shoes and choose her desire to be a star. After that she falls over the edge like Sister Ruth. Symbolically the message is there. So on the one hand, Powell and Pressburger’s film are very difference from any other directors of that period. They are spectacular, in colour, fantasy. They take the audience out of Britain but still the same message to women
