Salomé (1922)

Poses, Gestures and a Whole Lot of Nerve - Salomé review by griggs

Not so much a film as a fever dream put under glass, Salomé barely bothers with plot. It moves through poses, tableaux and moods instead, and somehow that turns out to be more than enough.

The real authorial force here is Alla Nazimova. She produced it, stars in it, and feels like the person shaping every strange, stylised inch of it. Charles Bryant may have the directing credit, but let’s not kid ourselves. Natacha Rambova’s designs, drawn from Aubrey Beardsley, are half the magic too: stark geometry, empty space, and costumes so extravagantly unreal that the actors start to look less like people than living decoration.

What I love is how it manages to be both spare and completely excessive at the same time. It is camp, decadent and full of ritual, but never tips into silliness. And yes, the allegedly all-queer cast myth fits the film so perfectly it almost does not matter whether it is strictly true. One warning, though: avoid any version with a synth score slapped on top. It cheapens the whole spell.