when i was around 6 years old, i had a babysitter who owned a copy of this film on video. i loved it and used to watch it every time i was at her house. i've spent the last year or so frantically googling to try and find out what it was. all i could remember was that it featured red pointe ballet shoes, mirrors, dancing in fruit, and that the cover of the video said 'kate bush' on it. whatever i searched, though, google only ever seemed to conclude that i was looking for 'black swan', but last weekend, i finally found it!
it turned out to be a short film directed by and starring kate bush, called 'the line, the cross, & the curve'. it is basically a re-telling of the classic fairytale 'the red shoes' (more info on that here), which inspired kate's album, also titled 'the red shoes'. the film is around 45 minutes long and is essentially several music video's for kate's songs strung together but I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
it feels so great finally being able to relive this part of my childhood that i thought i'd lost! i've been watching it every day since i found it, i'm just so happy to be able to watch it again. it was unfortunately only available on video (it was released for a short time on DVD in america but those copies are very rare and cost over £100 on amazon) but the whole film is available to watch on youtube (above), which is where i've been watching it.
one of my favourite parts of the film are the songs, because they sound so much like my childhood. i'm a big fan of kate's most famous song, 'wuthering heights', which i've posted about previously, but i had never really gotten around to looking into her other work. it feels so weird to think that i've loved kate bush since i was 6 years old, when i only really started getting into vintage music around a year ago.
my favourite songs from the album are: 'and so is love', 'eat the music', 'moments of pleasure', 'lily', and the title track, 'the red shoes', and all of those appear in the film. it's a very strange album and i feel that a lot of people may dislike it (partly because it sounds so different to 'wuthering heights' and that's the sound that people generally expect from kate bush) but it's such a big part of my childhood, how could i not love it?!
ah, i'm just in such a good mood from finding this film! i plan on ordering the cd soon (i found it for only £2.93 on ebay!) and listening to it all the time, pretending i'm 6 years old again. xx
I love this feeling, when you finally find something you've remembered and nobody else does! I searched for a cartoon for years and I was starting to think I made it up, I even e-mailed the TV station and production companies, tracked down the puppeteers and nobody had full episodes but the puppeteer finally uploaded a clip to youtube! Woohoo! (it's called Rimini Riddle, it's SO WEIRD).
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