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.

An experimental video variation on Shakespeare's Hamlet, n intresting experiment mixing the unique Carmelo Bene's vocal thechnique with experimental filmaking. The movie is a part of Carmelo Bene's multi-medial project on Hamlet, also including the theatrical movie "Un Amleto di meno", a stage drama and the TV-movie "Hommelette for Hamlet".

Independent filmmaker Carmelo Bene makes his debut in this feature that concerns the murder of the Saracens in the city of Otranto centuries ago. Our Lady appears at various time in the film, symbolic of the carnal desires and spiritual dreams of all men. Flashbacks and avant garde cinematic techniques provide passages of erotica and black humor on occasion. The story was taken from Bene's own novel as the author oversees all aspects of writing, production and direction in this experimental and provocative film.