Throughout the 1920s, Dulac turned frequently to the metaphorical and lyrical expression of sport and dance, or the “art of gestural harmonies”, to express the “inner states” of her characters, and often to subvert gender conventions. In La Princesse Mandane (1928), a commercial film adapted from a novel by Pierre Benoît, Dulac evokes the constraints of the female condition through classical ballet. The film tells the story of a young man who, having seen the great adventure film Michel Strogoff (Victor Tourjansky, 1926), imagines a voyage to the land of the Tartars, in which he attempts to rescue a princess sequestrated in her palace. Here, Dulac uses the simple linear figure of an immobile ballerina to evoke the social condition of the captive princess. In one of the film’s most visually striking scenes, the ballerina, who stands immobile aside from a few restricted and controlled poses, is isolated in the center of an immense room, surrounded by the guardians and spectators gazing at her. This composition visually translates the condition of the young heroine, as well as her sequestration in a masculine image. The image of the princess – the mise-en-scène of her femininity – is the object of a masculinist fantasy, just like the fragile and ephemeral body of the ballerina. During this period in which the cineaste and her partner Colson-Malleville were spotted dancing in the cabarets of rue Lepic (Montmartre), Dulac also used the rhythms of cinema and dance to tackle more socially controversial issues, such as homosexuality. At the time of her liberation, the princess appears to regain control of her image. First, her liberty comes through cross-dressing, a recurring motif in Dulac’s work (Ame d’artiste, 1925, L’Invitation au voyage, 1927). Then, at the film’s climax [spoiler alert], the princess, after being aided in her liberation by the young adventurer, rejects him. She presents him her crown, as a token of her gratitude, and leaves off-screen with another woman. Arguably, the gaze of the adventurer directed off-screen, followed by his expression of horror, renders the homosexual subtext explicit. The film’s framing narration, which restores heteronormative social roles at the end of the lm, no doubt allowed Dulac to satisfy a broader, more conservative public at the time.