In the early scenes Mata Hari (Greta Garbo) dances a slinky oriental dance; it's not clear what sort of culture she is meant to representthere are silver pagodas on her head, and a many-armed god in the background, as well as other orientalist culture indicators sprinkled throughout. It's enough that she's exotic, without needing to pin her nationality down. Her costumes are gorgeous and also vaguely oriental, but with much silver lamé. She wears hats. It's Paris during WW I, and there are spies all over the place, and she's the most independent and fearless of them all, cool and heartless, using men easily, as she does General Shubin (Lionel Barrymore), until she meets the handsome young Russian aviator Rosanoff (Ramon Navarro), who has excellent posture, melty eyes, and a Spanish accent. Navarro is all pleasing surfaces. In the course of being irresistible, she steals secrets from him and accidentally falls in love. This causes problems, she has to kill Shubin to protect Rosanoff, and she has to part with the aviator. His plane crashes, but she finds him when he is blinded in hospital and tells him sweet lies, and she protects him in court and faces the firing squad. The movie is purely a Garbo vehicle, and she is fine, breezing through the clichés and the bad writing, and acting cool and then passionate. She is, of course, compellingly lovely. When she is not dancing, she moves sinuously, mostly. She has an odd carriage when walking slowly through a room, leading with her head bent forward, her neck arched, her shoulders one or two inches from a shrug. Otherwise she reclines langorously and gazes at other characters with a smile impossible to read.
