March 28, 2012 |
FROM THE VAULT (WINTER / SPRING 2012)
Do you want to know the real reason Natalie Portman stabbed herself with a mirror at the end of Black Swan? No, it’s not because she was so consumed with her role that she had a mental breakdown. You know that scene, where after the first act she goes to changing room and sees herself in the mirror (or something like that, we’re allowed a little artistic licence), the camera pans to her feet and she notices that she is wearing just plain, nothing special, ballet shoes. They are not REPETTO! She flies into a rage, resulting in an untimely demise. You see, all prima ballerinas worth their salt worship at the altar of Repetto, not that of Swan Lake. So, yes, Portman did have the craziest dream last night that she was dancing the white, black, whatever swan and, in that dream, she was dancing it in her Repettos. And thanks to them she didn’t move, she glided. Like a swan on water. She was graceful, elegant. Well, Repetto had started in 1947, as a gift from a mother to her dancer son. And everyone knows that mothers only do things out of love. They’re hardly going to craft the perfect shoes with their bare hands with the aim of crippling their offspring. Nor are they then going to stop after crafting one perfect pair of shoes. No, they will continue. Bring joy to the feet of ballerinas the world over. Because, you know what, sometimes it’s good to give. Portman’s mother, the one for whom Portman has won the lead in the film, the one who projects all her unfulfilled dreams onto her offspring, only takes. She is the reason why Portman woke from her beautiful Repetto-shod dream into a nightmare. Who else would have taken the shoes? Some people were not born to be mothers. There’s a lesson to be learnt from all this, though. Should you want to be a ballerina, go to ballet school, leave home and get yourself to the nearest Repetto purveyor quick smart. For it is not the ballerina who makes the ballerina. It’s her shoes.
by Natalie Dembinska
