For the viewer enamored with arthouse, experimental, experiential and extremely lyrical cinema, it takes less than five minutes to get wholly immersed in this ethereal, boldly unconventional phantasmagoria which eschews historical/biblical narrative in favor of the sensual visuals and chic baroque atmosphere. Although it does feature the Dance of the Seven Veils, SALOMÉ refuses to tell the (familiar) story and instead opts for satiating our appetite for aesthetic pleasure. Ars gratia artis it may be, yet it hardly ever fails to impress, holding you in its gentle embrace…
Its pure, unadulterated magic relies on soft light, warm colors, strong chiaroscuro, deliberate pacing and slow-motion ‘action’ which turns the archetypal characters into partakers of a strange ritual of unfathomable purpose. As Eros and Thanatos dance like they are making love, the ripe darkness that surrounds them engulfs their hypnotized worshippers and drives them into sublime ecstasy. However, it is not only them who are under hypnosis, but us as well, with our gazes transfixed to the screen and ourselves lost in contemplative reveries. — Nikola Gocić
Dirty Looks and the Los Angeles Filmforum present a special, one-night-only screening of Teo Hernández’ richly impressionistic take on SALOMÉ at the Philosophical Research Society.
Dorian Wood—fresh off his Redcat incarnation in Xavela Lux Aeterna—will perform a score created for the event, “marrying the operatic evocations of Wood’s singular voice with Hernández’ baroque cinematography in the unique, Mayan-inspired architecture” of the venue.*
Thursday, December 5.
Doors at 7:30 pm, screening at 8 PM.
Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard, Los Angeles.
Teo Hernández, Salomé (1976), images courtesy and © the Teo Hernández Fund, Kandinsky Library, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
