Stéphane Marti | Ladyman / 1976

dancing for the sultan

by Douglas Messerli

 

Stéphane Marti (director) Ladyman / 1976

 

For French director Stéphane Marti the body is not worshipped only for its physical beauty but for what it evokes through how it covers and hides itself and how through its motions it entices us to embrace everything we can never know about it within.

      Marti arguably perceives that body at its best is exotic, androgynous, constantly shifting, and unapproachable. For him, it appears, the other is best kept at arm’s-length while simultaneously attempting to lure the other closer to it. At least that is how we observe what might almost be said to be the evocative dance of the seven veils that his long-time subject, Aloual, performs before his cinematic surrogate to the music of Lou Reed in the 1976 film Ladyman.

 

  As his often verbally impenetrable publicity characterizes his cinematic concerns: “Marti works around issues of the body, the sacred, of gender identity disorder and strategies of desire.” I wouldn’t exactly want to label being confused or interested in different and competing genders within oneself a “disorder,” but I think the fact that Aloual clearly is interested in alternately robing himself—a bit like he was performing a private fashion show for his friend (Philippe Chazal)—in various feminine and male attire is clearly fascinating.

 

     We gather through Marti’s presentation of Aloual—eyes glamorously painted somewhat like an Indian devi, as he dances, poses in his red shorts and on occasion (apparently invoking images of the past) stands completely nude in between changing outfits— imploring the “cornered” other male to take him into his arms and secret confidences, that he would like to be appreciated as a beloved object—all to no avail,  The brooding dark French male keeps rejecting Aloual’s open hand and attempts to embrace him.

 

    Evidently, it is dance itself that pleases Chazal’s character more than any consumption or obvious acceptance. Aloual must depend upon his memory of past embracement or imagine wooing the viewers of the film. Evidently, if this episode of one thousand and one attempts to enchant the sultan, any attempt to grasp the constantly moving exhibitionist by the voyeur would mean stasis, the body contained and controlled instead of merely worshipped.

 

Los Angeles, August 15, 2021

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (August 2021).