Un Amleto di meno

With Salome behind him, Bene’s interest in cinema declined; he made just one more film, UN AMLETO DI MENO (ONE HAMLET LESS), an adaptation of one of his best-known stage works. A hallucinatory take on HAMLET inspired in equal parts by Shakespeare and the French surrealist poet Jules Laforgue, UN AMLETO DI MENO utilizes outrageously opulent costumes and a color scheme composed primarily of shades of blue. The action is only slightly less frenzied than that of SALOME, with naked women in nun’s habits cavorting amidst all white backgrounds, giant red balls, a cemetery on a beach and a fabulous glass coffin. It seems curiously appropriate that in the midst of such unrestrained lunacy, when the king is crowned in the end he (quite literally) has no face.