莎乐美

There have been many films of the play "Salome", but none of them are anything like Carmelo Bene's version. The film is so bright, colorful and strange; it will make your head spin. The intro of the film contains a cartoon camel jumping through a loop, women getting spanked with feather paddles, a man slicing a watermelon with a machete and a women with beaded jewelry emerging from the water. Unfortunately, the only copy I could find didn't have subtitles. I really didn't need to understand the dialog to enjoy the strange and weird images. It's as if someone filmed Fellini Satyricon on a fixed budget, cut it into pieces, rearranged it and laced it with LSD style editing. That's why it is so darn entertaining. I first learned about Italian director Carmelo Bene from the book "Film as a Subversive Art" by Amos Vogel. This book changed the way I view films. I go out of my way to find surreal films like "Salome". It is strange, experimental and quite an experience. Don't watch this film on drugs, because the film is a drug in itself. A startling head trip of a film.