Salome
Written by: Oscar Wilde
Directed by: Alexia Anastasio and Kevin Sean Michaels
featuring: Alexia Anastasio, Jolie Voltaire, Veronica Heffron, Monique Stines
2008, 13 minutes www.salomefilm.com

So, this all-female version of a play by Oscar Wilde about a biblical character with no dialogue and music by Ari Lehman (Jason in the first Friday the 13^th film) is… really good! What are the odds? Salome has a really artistic, surreal and sophisticated quality that's rare and precious in film. Director Alexia Anestasio also stars as the title character, a woman who was forced to dance for King Herod in order to persuade him to decapitate John the Baptist. However, her heart truly belonged to a shallow and unworthy slave girl named Iokannan. Replacing King Herod with Queen Herod (you know, to make all the characters female), Anastasio’s short film is nothing short of avant-garde and heroic…

After the warrior princess Salome, who does some swordsmanship for our enjoyment, or for her practice, is rejected by the long-haired Iokannan, she is summoned to Queen Herod’s throne room for nefarious lesbian purposes. Salome does not love Herod; her heart belongs to Iokannan. However, Herod wants Salome to dance for her so badly that she claims she’ll give her anything she wants in return, and Salome decides it sounds like a pretty good deal. Because you know what she wants? Iokannan’s head. Talk about revenge.

Salome, the princess.

Minimalist and well directed, Salome has elements of ballet and modern dance theater throughout so that it transcends being only a film. One of the oldest stories of rage and revenge, Salome is terrifying despite never shedding any blood, even throughout the beheading of the dumbly ignorant Iokannan. Colors and music play an equally important and impressive role in Salome, the costumes and art direction adding to the distorted and violent storyline. The music, however, is the best part. Alternating between trancelike beats and depressed piano solos, Ari Lehman has really made a beautiful score for this sadistic and brutal little short.

Queen Herod

Of course, the most beautiful part of all is that none of Wilde’s original irony or dread is lost even without the dialogue. This is a brave film that takes a lot of artistic risks to make something original and shockingly gorgeous and maintains a minimal level of pretension even whilre rewriting all the roles as females.