Salome (1981) User Reviews

Laurice Guillen in her proper form...

[oggsmoggs · 9/10 · 19 January 2006]

Salome - Laurice Guillen I finally saw Laurice Guillen's hailed film Salome and I must say that I'm pretty impressed with it. Salome is about the titular barrio girl (played with much versatility by a young Gina Alajar) who is married to a domineering man named Macario (Johnny Delgado). The film starts quite wonderfully with a pleasant montage of an early morning in a rural town, with roosters crowing, the bright sun glaring, and the waves steadily blanketing the glistening beach. Then comes Salome, dressed in white stained with red blood, running and screeching for help, finally saying that he has killed a man. The man (Dennis Roldan) is a mining engineer from Manila who finds himself drawn to Salome. Guillen and her screenwriter Ricardo Lee basically unravels Salome's story through a series of flashbacks of the man's murder. Some have claimed that Salome is a Filipino version of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and they are probably right as Guillen and Lee follows the same style. Yet while Kurosawa was interested in the multi-faceted aspect of truth, Guillen is more interested in the powerplay of the genders. Guillen's films have been described as feminist in spirit and Salome, while still having the typical Filipino plot movements that mostly involve showing females at their weakest (rape scenes or wife-beating scenes), it presents the central female character as a chameleon of sorts, ready to use, to attack, to even distort the truth, to maintain that de facto seat of power men consciously and mistakenly refer to as a weakness. Yet if such is a weakness, then why do men swoon and go insane with lust like the man from Manila who ends his life during that erstwhile affair. If such is a weakness, then why do men give everything and still beg and plea for repentance as the character of Macario does when societal justice fails to repair the wounds of an already scarred marriage. Salome is not interested with truth, as we can see the courts has settled that for us yet the film does not end where the court has determined Salome's criminal liability. The film is more of an examination of a woman's power to drive men crazy and down to their knees with just a tinge of innocence coupled with the attractive curves of their bodies. The same power that drove the residents of that seaside barrio away from the beach where the mythical mermaids dwell yet incessantly lures the village idiot back to wait for nothing but sure death. ****1/2/*****

A treat to watch and remains fresh

[Sirfaro11 · 8/10 · 4 June 2012]

Laurice Guillen's brilliant movie tells the story of Salome, her version of what happened that fateful day when the engineer (Dennis Roldan) from Manila came to her house and attempted to rape her. She has been avoiding the man but he continued to pursue her and attempted to rape her. In a desperate move to protect her dignity, she killed him. Or was she protecting herself? This is the question the movie tried to answer, as the family hired a lawyer to help them with their case.

Before the trial is over, you would have heard another version of the story, reminiscent of Rashomon. But this movie is closer to home, with its barrio setting, the girl fight and the crispy dialogue. (bakit mo ko pasasalamatan, asawa mo ko di ba?; why are you thanking me? I am your husband, isn't it?)

Before the movie ends, we hear the point of view of Johnny Delgado , the husband, who witnessed everything, the third and real version. Credit Ricky Lee's masterful script and Guillen's story to end with such melancholy, the only way out for the two poor souls.

Salome is a treat to watch, it's fresh even in 2012. I just hope they would be able to restore this film before it disintegrates.