Salome’s Last Dance (1988) - film review

Salome’s Last Dance is a British film comedy-drama first released in 1988, directed by Ken Russell.  The film stars Glenda Jackson, Stratford Johns, Nickolas Grace, Douglas Hodge and Imogen Millais-Scott.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.

Write a synopsis for this film...

Ken Russell’s Salome’s Last Dance (based on a play by Oscar Wilde) depicts a predatory (possessive) personal love as a phenomenon that is typical for many people in all social strata in various historical epochs.  By comparing the existential atmosphere in Ancient Judea under Roman domination with the European modernity of the end of 19th century and the European post-WW2 democratic renaissance, Russell creates a universal picture of predatory love in its social and psychological aspects.  Salome’s Last Dance is a comparative analysis of amorous encounter between two human beings as a fight for domination when even sexual desire becomes the instrument in this fight and is used as a means to tie up and control another person.

Russell makes Oscar Wilde a character in his film, in order, it seems, to open up an additional historical perspective, scholarly relativizing Wilde’s play, and dramatizing human personal encounter with historical forces.  The director’s elaborate classification of the types of possessive love (all of them internalising and utilizing the experience of social competitive fights as its pseudo-amorous code) is quite applicable to our life in the 21st century and is one of the achievements of this film.

Burlesque and tragedy are mixed up on the screen, as happens in life, defeating human imagination and moral idealism.  The acting is in the best tradition of English theater when actors not only articulate the characters’ emotions before the spectators but demonstrate their psychological roots.  Glenda Jackson (Herodias and Lady Alice) and Stratford Johns (Herod and Alfred Taylor, the brothel keeper) gave in this film the sharpest performance of their long creative careers.  Their mimic and intonational versatility is unique and memorable.  Russell’s interesting analysis of the psychological peculiarities of homosexual love (based on love affair between Oscar Wilde and Lord Douglas/Bosie) is a part of his classification of types of personal love.

Please, visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com  to read about Ken Russell’s film (with analysis of the stills from the film), and essays about the films by Godard, Resnais, Bergman, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Bresson, Pasolini and many other directors.

© Victor Enyutin (Seattle, US) 2011

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?