dir. Christina Acevedo

A quick look at women’s fashion and beauty trends throughout history shows that women have always endured suffering to achieve a certain look. That certain look was meant to signify class, or sometimes occupation, but most importantly, to appeal to men. From skin bleach and toxic lead cosmetics to corsets and neck-crushingly heavy wigs, the “beauty is pain” adage has been true for as long as women have been able to put on clothing and, well, be perceived by the male gaze. 

When we dress today, as modern women, many of us self-proclaimed feminists, we can say we put ourselves together with an awareness of society’s objectification and aesthetic expectation forced onto women. But can we actually, meaningfully distance ourselves from it? We can say we love a pair of shoes because of our own tastes, but was the creation of those shoes also removed from, plainly, what men want? What power does performance have if you’re indulging in the desires of the oppressor, or does that simply make one wiser and more powerful?

Writer and director Christina Acevedo masterfully infuses this modern-day parable with moody style in black and white, professing a clear love of the horror genre in both plot and performance. Her short The Pointy Shoes spins these age-old questions into a dark fairy tale, a body-horror odyssey that ends with a shift in power, but not necessarily a happy ending.

A woman (Lindsey Sagrera) sits before two mirrors, her kohl-lined eyes focused on her reflection as she applies a layer of lipstick and studies herself once more before gazing lovingly to her left. There, a pair of light-colored, pointy kitten-heels sit, brand new atop the tissue in their box. She slides them on—a perfect fit—and her first-date look is complete. 

We watch the woman descend down a disorienting spiral staircase, the camera slightly tilted, before she leaves her house, creating a sense of unease and forecasting the unsettling events to come. She meets her date (Alex Lukmann), first introduced to us with his comfortable, classic pair of Converse juxtaposed next to her pointy slippers. Billed as ‘the boy’ (which is how I’ll refer to him from now on), he’s a photographer, and immediately snaps a photo before they begin their date: a walk by the water through a trail in the nearby park. At several points the woman looks down uncomfortably at her feet, which are beginning to show signs of blisters. But at each pause, the boy gives her a smile, tells her to pose and snaps a photo, and she obliges. Further down the path the boy leaves her side to go relieve himself in a nearby bush (imagine how he would react if she were to do the same), and she takes the moment out of his eyesight to remove her shoes and inspect her feet. They’re covered in painful, oozing, pus-erupting blisters, but as he returns she shoves her feet back in and continues onward. 

Eventually they arrive at the shoreline, where the boy, feeling romantic (and completely ignorant of her discomfort), takes the woman in his arms and spins her around and around until her bloodied and blistered feet are lifted from the ground. After he kisses her, she repels backward, and in a fit reminiscent of Isabel Adjani’s infamous subway freak-out in Possession, she finally allows herself to erupt in an exorcism of pain and rage; the terrible expectation of being a woman consuming her.

She collapses, and rises again without the shoes on. In her comfort and power that stemmed from such violent pain, she approaches the boy (taking yet another photo), and attacks him with the pointy toe of her slipper. This act breaks her out of his gaze, ends her role as the perfect, well-put together woman, and releases her from the incredible suffering. But for how long?