If you look even closer at “The Spy Dancer,” you’ll see many nods to art and culture that are commonplace in France. Much of the art style takes cues from the Art Nouveau movement. Though not strictly French, it has ties deep in France where even many of the Metro stations are still fashioned in this style more than a hundred years later. Art Nouveau is also important because of the way it uses lines and implies movement and dynamism in its lines. “The Spy Dancer” evokes this in moving images.
It also takes place in a cabaret, which was the sort of venue that France has been particularly known for, from the Chat Noir and Agile Lapin to the Moulin Rouge itself. “The Spy Dancer” offers a musical dance performance akin to those one could see at that time. But cabarets weren’t just for dancing. They were gathering places for artists and thinkers, and exactly the sort of folks dangerous enough to resist regimes like the Nazis or the Empire.
Seeing stories that rip moments and ideas from history in the “Star Wars” universe adds a layer of realism and importance to the stories, reminding us to pay attention to the horrors behind the art. And with “The Spy Dancer”, the filmmakers gave us something uniquely French.
“Star Wars: Visions – Volume 2” is now streaming on Disney+.
