The Seventh Veil of Salome
1950s Hollywood. Pacific Pictures requires a special new talent to star as Salome on the silver screen, a sultry looker to dance that dance. In Mexico, young Vera Larios gets a lucky break, gets invited to LA for the audition, gets the part. On set, most folks are sceptical, rude or downright racist, but Vera, quelling internal doubts, toughs it out; unbeknownst to her, two-bit aspiring starlet Nancy seethes with a scheming jealousy, loose woman becoming revengeful loose cannon. Meanwhile (albeit two millennia earlier) the real Salome, mired in bloodline politics, anticipates her own show-stopping performance. As the two stories progress, the girls’ families, passions and goals display sundry similarities. Recognising their true desires, they make their choices, their lives merging across time to culminate in, yes, that dance. Persistent suspense builds as they pursue their aims.
Both depictions of Salome’s life – that of the generally-agreed biblical tale and Hollywood’s attempts to bring it to the screen – are cleverly presented as named chapters, each one a storyline character, who take turns advancing the narrative, some written in the first person as if we’re observing an interview. Interwoven are Salome’s chapters that develop her 1st-century timeline. Beautifully imagined realistic settings and speech in both eras are wholly redolent of their respective times, Salome with her opulence and intrigues, Hollywood with its decadence and danger. Los Angeles meets The Levant – it’s like watching two movies simultaneously. Truly remarkable, grippingly told, thoroughly recommended.
