Salome, South Bank’s Screen Seductress
South Bank’s British Film Institute – whose program schedules are determined by delicious, abstract concepts rather than a homogenous role call of new releases – is in the middle of a season, a season made up of two words likely to send an erotic shudder down all but the most monk-like of spines. It’s the Screen Seductress Season filled with…femme fatales. Now shudder. You know you want to.
One red-blooded, celluloid goddess who has already left audience members in need of a cold shower is Salome, played by Alla Nazimova. Although directorship of the silent film, made in 1923, is credited to her then husband, Charles Bryant, it is widely acknowledged that the adaptation of the Wilde adaptation of the bible story was Nazimova’s. She wrote it under the pen name Peter M Winters and put in 20 hour days at the studio to ensure the realisation of her vision.
And what a vision. Playing lead creep is Herod, the Tetrach of Judea, who slaughtered his brother and married the widow, Herodias, to gain the throne. Not that Herodias gets a look in as Herod is too busy salivating over her daughter, Salome.
Most of us would be terrified to be the object of the Tetrach’s attention. His character is the purest form of depravity, raised by power to a place where no one can say, ‘quit your vomit-worthy leering.’ Yet Salome, a Baltic Lolita who has swapped bubble gum for black eye make up, strolls around the palace grounds, violating Herod’s wishes with the cool insolence of a cucumber dipped in chilli sauce.
This changes when unrequited love visits Salome and like a calculating woman scorned she performs the dance of the seven veils for her step-dad in return for the vengeance only he can grant.
Action takes place at a lavish outdoor feast with all the principle characters done up to the nines. Salome sports a risqué tunic that leaves her lithe, pale limbs here, there and everywhere. Each lock of hair is tipped with a bijou glow stick causing a Medusa-at-a festival effect. Herod’s face is painted white and a laurel rests on his thinning hair.
For some reason, presumably because the BFI believe a modern audience requires constant noise, the film was accompanied by Bishi playing Anglo-Indian sitar music. This sometimes made events more haunting yet occasionally threatened to sublimate them.
Not that there’s much in the way of intricate storytelling to derail. Ludicrous and incoherent at times this film is like mardi gras meets Roman decadence meets an acid trip turned nasty. In the background midgets dance and black people are slaves and in the foreground, a young girl erupts sensuality whilst an old man disgraces his sex. Shining through all the grime and grotesquery is Nazimova, in her forties yet in possession of the fiery independence of a real screen siren.
The Screen Seductress Season runs until Wednesday 25 March
BFI Southbank
Belvedere Road
South Bank
SE1 8XT
Tel: 020 7928 3232
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