Ken Russell always has been an acquired taste, some will find it clever and unique, others will find him excessive and in a distasteful way. With me, Russell has evoked mixed reactions, there is definitely few directors quite like him but admittedly he does have ideas that fall into controversial excess. I loved his Elgar, Delius- both proof that he can be restrained- and Debussy biographies as well as very much liking The Music Lovers and Mahler(The Devils is a controversial but hugely well done and fascinating), but not his 80s Faust production where his touches were bewildering and distracting and Lisztomania is the very meaning of a difficult-to-rate film, a unique film but often too much of a tasteless one. Haven't seen Salome's Last Dance, Tommy or Women in Love yet, where opinions have been very mixed for all three, but they are high on my to-see-list.
Dance of the Seven Veils is another one of his controversial works, it does have good things as well as things that don't work and of Russell's composer biographies it is one of his weaker ones, Lisztomania being his worst. Dance of the Veils does look striking, beautifully filmed and costumes and sets that are mostly appropriate. The imagery is very over-the-top but is cleverly composed and fascinating to see, tough to pick a standout actually because they are of a consistent standard visually. Standouts if having to choose being the Also Sprach Zarathustra and the swashbuckling during the stage performance sequences. The music is magnificent(worth two stars on its own actually), well it's Richard Strauss you can't expect anything less, and is well-utilised especially Also Sprach Zarathustra(the piece that even non-classical-music fans will recognise most likely). The orchestra play it with power and nuance. It was interesting also to see figures like Don Quixote, Macbeth, a caveman amongst others and also characters that you'll recognise from his operas, Salome being the most familiar. And the acting is good, the best is the chilling Goebbels of Vladek Sheybal, perhaps one of the better interpretations of a figure that has rarely been portrayed wrong. Kenneth Colley is suitably ruthless as Hitler and Christopher Gable enigmatic in the title role.
For all those good things, Dance of the Seven Veils is one of those biographies that has gotten a great deal of controversy and for good reason. The imagery looks good and is sometimes amusing(like Strauss and Hitler at a picnic), however it is also imagery that is characteristic of Ken Russell excess, not just irrelevant at times but also most likely will cause offense- well make that has as I've seen many today still being reviled by it. The ones representing religion is especially true to this, not subtle at all. The script and story also are swamped by the visuals, the script feels underwritten and the story once you leave the imagery out of the equation doesn't tell us a huge amount about Strauss' life or his music. Strauss himself is very one-dimensional and cartoonish here(even for a person deliberately written as one within Dance of the Seven Veils' concept), and I personally don't think he was as unlikeable as he was here, and while well-acted the other characters are no better. There is the feeling that while Elgar, Delius, Debussy were done with restraint and love for the composers(The Music Lovers too, Russell at least seemed to understand that Tchaikovsky was a tormented genius), Strauss here was to Wagner in Lisztomania as composers that Russell disliked. Wagner is to a little extent understandable because, while his music is incredible, it is well-documented that he was a terrible man, but with Strauss it is incomprehensible as to why Russell would treat him like this.
Overall, Dance of the Seven Veils is worth the watch but this is really not Russell at his best. 6/10 Bethany Cox
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