Main Cast: Kate Bush, Miranda Richardson, Lindsay Kemp
Release Year: 1993
Country: UK
Run Time: 44 minutes
Plot
A performer becomes trapped in a pair of magic shoes that won't stop dancing in this 45-minute short that marks the directorial debut of British musician Kate Bush. Bush plays a singer/dancer who finds her rock band's rehearsals interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious woman who appears magically from the other side of the studio mirror. Offering Bush's character a pair of magic shoes, the gaudy diva (Miranda Richardson) quickly escapes back through the mirror just as Bush realizes that the shoes won't stop dancing and won't come off. Following the enchantress through the mirror, Bush travels through a fantastical landscape of prancing devils, sinister crones, icy cities, and endless movement, finally confronting her foe in a battle that shatters the mirror separating fantasy from reality. Six songs from Bush's 1993 album The Red Shoes provide the soundtrack for The Line, the Cross and the Curve; individual scenes were later edited into separate videos for the album's singles. Lindsay Kemp, the legendary mime and London stage performer who trained both Bush and David Bowie in movement techniques, appears alongside several other longtime Bush collaborators, including her brother. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
As mannered and idiosyncratic as her groundbreaking recorded output, singer/songwriter Kate Bush's debut as a filmmaker is as full of ideas as it is short on linear storytelling. The Line, the Cross and the Curve finds the musician parlaying the mythic qualities of her lyrics and the visual flair she perfected in a series of distinctive music videos into a 44-minute short that draws more from the avant-garde than it does from Hollywood. Bush's 1993 album The Red Shoes was inspired by Michael Powell's 1948 film of the same name; the disc's title track provides The Line, the Cross and the Curve with its title and plot, while its fantastic settings borrow equally from Hans Christian Anderson, David Lynch, and the Old Testament. It should come as no surprise to fans of Bush's 1985 video for "Cloudbusting," which starred Donald Sutherland, that Miranda Richardson turns in a rousingly wicked performance as the coy enchantress who ensorcels Bush's character. The keenly cinematic way in which the director stages the battle between the two characters -- including a seemingly zero-gravity catfight framed as a slow see-saw of extreme close-ups -- marks Bush as a quick study in her newly adopted medium. A similarly subtle and patient scene, set to the exquisitely aching "Moments of Pleasure," finds Bush tumbling through a snowscape in one long, circular take. Throw in a Twin Peaks-esque nightmare ("Lily"), a ballad staged as a symbolist lament ("And So Is Love"), a raucous dance piece featuring the singer in a straightjacket ("Rubberband Girl"), and a Polynesian finale replete with exploding fruit ("Eat the Music"), and you've got an ace crop of unusual promo clips. Whether they add up to more than the sum of their parts is for the audience to decide, but Bush's stature as a British art rock chart-topper and American cult figure ensures there's an audience for this willfully offbeat debut. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Roger Hall - Art Director, Ben Scott - Art Director, Hazel Pethig - Costume Designer, Laurie Borg - First Assistant Director, Kate Bush - Director, Julian Rodd - Editor, Kate Bush - Composer (Music Score), Roger Hall - Production Designer, Roger Pratt - Cinematographer, Steve Jones - Sound/Sound Designer, Kate Bush - Screenwriter
