The Choice

Marianne to see e Red Shoes, a movie written, we are proud to
learn, by Emeric Pressburger, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant. I
remember the ĕlm so well because it moved through me in two
directions. Sitting in the dark, eating popcorn with my family, I felt a
contentment that had grown elusive for me—a faith that all was well,
that we could have a happy postwar life. But the ĕlm itself—the
characters, the story—upended me with the force of recognition.
Something broke through my careful mask, and I gazed into the full
face of my hunger.
e movie is about a dancer, Vicky Page, who catches the attention
of Boris Lermontov, the artistic director of a celebrated ballet
company. She practices the high kick at the barre, she dances
passionately in Swan Lake, she longs for Lermontov’s attention and
regard. I can’t look away from the screen. I feel like I am watching my
own life, the one I would have gone on to live if there hadn’t been a
Hitler, if there hadn’t been a war. For a moment I think it is Eric in the
seat next to mine, I forget I have a daughter. I am only twenty-three,
but it feels as though the best parts of my life are over. At one point in
the movie Lermontov asks Vicky, “Why do you want to dance?” She
replies, “Why do you want to live?” Lermontov says, “I don’t know
exactly why, but I must.” Vicky says, “at’s my answer too.” Before
Auschwitz, even at Auschwitz, I would have said the same. ere was
a constant inner light, a part of me that always feasted and danced,
that never relinquished the longing for life. Now my guiding purpose
is simply to act in such a way that my daughter never knows my pain.
It’s a sad movie. Vicky’s dream doesn’t turn out the way she
thought it would. When she dances the lead role in Lermontov’s new
ballet, she is haunted by demons. is part of the movie is so terrifying
I can barely watch. Vicky’s red ballet shoes seem to take control of her,
they dance her almost to death, she is dancing through her own
nightmares—ghouls and barren landscapes, a dance partner made of