When I got the chance to watch a preview of THE RED SHOES  (A Love Story) last Friday night, I grabbed it and watched with my friends iMom and SassyMom.

Honestly, I was surprised when it was announced that the writer, director and some cast were present. “How could that be?” I thought, because movie is a foreign film. Turned out I was wrong.

The Red Shoes (A Love Story) is produced by Unitel Productions. Yes the same one who gave us Inang Yaya and Crying Ladies.

No, I did not get to watch both films. Truth is the last locally-produced movie I watched was that of a real-life sweethearts’ movie. Sadly, its leading man has passed away.

Anyway, The Red Shoes (A Love Story) is a love story of Lucas and Bettina that spanned several years. It is also the love story of the parents of Lucas.

Watch a teaser of The Red Shoes (A Love Story) here and here.

I will not dwell on the plot and spoil the fun for you. I will just give emphasis to the symbols that I feel are important in the story:

Shoes: For me, this is the focal point of the story: Imelda Marcos’ pair of red shoes that Lucas got from malacanang Palace. He gave the right shoe to his mother and the left shoe for his loved one, Bettina. Every character in the movie has a favorite kind of shoe to wear. Lucas’ mom, Chat, always gets a new pair of shoes for her birthday. In real life, we all wear different kinds of shoes, depending on what we hope to do, where we are going and what we hope to accomplish.

Bridges. Bettina loves bridges because her father used to build bridges. In the story, a certain bridge provided the setting for the highlight of the love story as well as the end of it. Bridges connect us with people much as it separate us from one another.

Spirista. When all else fails, we go to the spiritista, the one who will “talk” to our loved ones who passed away without telling us their last wish. Don’t we just wish this is easily done for our peace of mind, at least?

Home Altar. For  a predominantly Catholic country, home altars are common. Alongside these however are traditional Chinese thingamajigs like frogs or Buddha figurines. When a loved one died, it is also customary to “offer” food (called atang) to seek the favor of the one who died to intercede and ask help from the saints for a favor being asked. This is my opinion on this matter, by the way.

Moving on. Chat had difficulty moving on after her husband’s death more than two decades ago. This tackles how people deal with grief on their own terms. Or maybe because her intuition tells her otherwise that’s why she won’t stop until she gets a “message” from her dead husband. Moving on is one of the hardest things to do, especially after a sudden and/or tragic death of a loved one.

Jose Rizal snippet about slippers: Jose Rizal lost a slipper on a lake. What he did was throw the other slipper away so that whoever might find both would get to use the pair. There was something about this in the story and it moved me to tears.

Removing shoes/slippers when entering a big house. This used to be customary, as a sign of respect, especially if the one entering the big house is from a lower economic strata. This is a kind of demarcation line between the haves and the have-nots.

There are still a lot more to be discussed and I know this has gone too long.

Please go and watch the movie and I am sure you are going to love it.

The Red Shoes (A Love Story) will be shown in theaters on March 10, 2010.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 10:33 pm and is filed under About Town, Interesting tidbits, Lessons in Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.