On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: GOD SAVE MY SHOES (Gravitas).

GOD SAVE MY SHOES
By Amy Slotnick

Although you first might think this is another fashion documentary, one that explores the history, design and obsession with women’s shoes. However, GOD SAVE MY SHOES is actually more about addiction than anything else.

Julie Benasra’s documentary provides a thorough analysis of shoes as pop culture icons and fetishized objects. Interviews with top designers, such as Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin, shoe collectors, like performers Kelly Rowland, Fergie, Dita Von Teese and poker player Beth Shak (who owns over 900 pairs), as well as sexuality experts, fashion historians, orthopedists and psychologists, explore the power, sexual and social implications of the famous stiletto heel. More than once SEX & THE CITY is credited with exploiting women’s attraction to stiletto heels and bringing them to the forefront of today’s fashion and pop culture.

Pierre Hardy                        Christian Louboutin                      Manolo Blahnik

Several theories emerge about what draws some women so obsessively to buy an impractical quantity of shoes at increasing heights. On the one hand, by minimizing the height difference with men, the high heel can be seen as increasing a woman’s power, putting her on eye-level with male counterparts. On the other hand, they limit a woman’s mobility and if heels were a way to increase power, as one of the film’s experts observes, they would be coveted and worn by men (as they were at one time in the 18th century).

Kelly Rowland