Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Reportedly, when the executives of one, now defunct, American film company saw "Saló", which they helped co-finance and had distribution rights on, they were so disturbed and embarrassed that they didn't know what to do. Are we going to release this thing? With our company name on it? Where?

They had to show that they released it somewhere in the U.S. or territories.

So they did. In a small theater in El Condado area near San Juan, Puerto Rico.

There's where I saw it. In the mid-70's. With the film company's name on it.

Is it any good? Well, I'm no great admirer of Pasolini. Frankly, I find his movies intolerable. And "Saló" is no exception. But, unlike his Trilogy of Life ("The Decameron", "Canterbury Tales", "Arabian Nights") where he at least displayed some flair and humor, this one is a different animal.

His style was always somewhat ponderous. In "Saló" it is heavily, oppressively didactic: static tableaux-style framing, a deliberately slow pace, no humor whatsoever, and actors who don't play characters but conceits. Although Pasolini uses De Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" as scaffolding and as a pointed commentary, "Saló" is actually based on real events that happened in the Republic of Saló in Northern Italy, where a group of wealthy fascists abducted a large group of young men and women, went on to debase them, and after they were done with them they killed them. Pasolini staged all the scenes as demonstrations of degradation and cruelty. And he does not flinch.

At the end he includes a bibliography.

It's an unpleasant experience.

Clearly, Pasolini, an award-winning poet and one of the leading intellectuals of his time, was very angry when he did this moving picture. He wanted to send a message to Italy and to the world.

It was his last film.

Months later he was murdered.

After several weeks of being in release, the theater was raided by our local vice authorities.

Fmovies: It is pointless, insulting, and redundant to buy into the defence/condemnation dynamic that Pier Paolo Pasolini's testament so snidely provokes and invites. In making what will remain one of the darkest and most vicious films ever made, Pasolini's bleak vision at the time of this films production in 1975 wanted to make the point that we are not free. We are limited by social restraints and political conditioning which makes us no better than the victims in this powerful, shattering cinema experience. That Pasolini was murdered by a male hustler in JFK-worthy circumstances - before he had time to utterly complete and polish the film - is an apt reminder of the forces of censorship and their merciless, cruel satisfaction in maintaining blank and reprehensible silences.

I refuse to join in the disinfecting and antiseptic treatments that people calling themselves supporters have applied to this film. There are moments of eroticism, beauty and even dark humour in this film and those who seek to castrate and deny Pasolini his humanity and complexity by pretending otherwise are naive if not duplicitous with those who placed this film in the category of "banned" in Australia. To deny Pasolini the distinction of having created a multiple, difficult film with various levels of engagement is to reduce his profound legacy.

Pasolini made this film to make people think hard and harshly and to contemplate themselves. The darkness of the cinema is part of that indictment and denying Pasolini this space for his film is pure evil. He was a disgusted and angry man and this film shares the passions, disapointments and loves of Pasolini. He wanted to change things. To help people. To provoke and make us ponder and contemplate ideas and arguments. That some will not is no revelation. But this is not some far off distant story - Salo is a political electric shock treatment as relevant today and tommorrow as upon its initial release (or non-release as may be the case). Its his most lavish and grand film and also his most personal. Throughout the film we are reminded that this microcosm of society implicates us - our surveillance of the events in this film is an act of violence and violation. Words are weapons wielded by the Duke and his merry bandits as they systematically annihilate the young people under their pointless control.

Pasolini is throwing Salo at us with the pride and courage of a protestor throwing excrement at a politician. This film is a political act. Australia is as dangerous a country as those demonised "foreign" countries with more extreme , exploitable examples of political censorship. Thankfully this film is available in Australia from certain sources but it remains denied its rightful place in the cinema theatre and general, legal release. But at least it can still be seen. The resistance continues. Like the young man who raises his arm in salute against his captors in Salo in the most dire and deadly circumstances. I do the same to Pasolini in less deadly but no less dire circumstance. To one of our greatest modern philosophers and visionaries, Pier Paolo Pasolini, we should be truly thankful.

So you say you've seen nearly-every major Italian-giallo? You've seen Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Michele Soavi, and even all the "classics" of Italian-film? Leone, Fellini, DeSicca, Bertolucci, Martino, and even most of the "world-classics"? By this point, you've probably seen-it-all, and you think there is no film that will shock you? If you haven't seen Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Salo", you are wrong. Pasolini didn't even live to see the film widely-released--he was murdered by a male-hustler (or so the official-story plays). Pier Pasolini was the most-important post-war intellectual in Italy, period. Like a Renaissance polymath, he was adept at journalism, the novel, poetry, screen writing, directing motion-pictures, and more. His revolutionary-philosophy was against fascism and communism, and he had many enemies in the political-arena, as well as the religious. All-said, however, it's likely that Pier Pasolini was murdered by a right-wing assassination-team under the aegis of "gladio", a NATO program of secret-armies through Western Europe. Gladio began, ostensibly, as a defense-against a hypothetical Soviet-invasion of Europe, but was used to attack legitimate Leftist political-parties and groups. The Red Brigade bombings in the 1970s were even instigated-by gladio-operatives to justify a law-and-order crackdown of the Italian Communist Party--it is a mystery as to how-much CIA-influence this all had. The P-2 conspiracy (oddly, involving the Vatican, the CIA, KGB, and renegade Freemasons!) had yet-to-break. There were dozens of politically-motivated killings in 1970s-Italy, and Pasolini's was one-of-many. One has to wonder how-much involvement the Vatican had in his murder, as well.

And so, "Salo" enters this bloody-fray. It could not be any more controversial on all-fronts, and is a shout-of-rage against how little we all care about human-life itself. Pasolini was outraged and disappointed with the human-condition, and Italian politics had become chaos--leading Sergio Leone to remark at the time that, "Italian politics have become ridiculous." The scenario of Salo is fairly-simple: a group of Italian-fascists retreat to a palace in Northern Italy (where there was a great-deal of support for Italian fascism and the Monarch) with a group of sixteen boys and girls. It is the short-lived Republic of Salo, hence the title that any Italian of the 1970s would recognize. For 120-days, they degrade them in almost every-imaginable-way. Gay-rape, buggery, forcing people to eat-excrement, and finally, death. Of course, it's all based-loosely on DeSade's tale and stays pretty-closely to the text's themes and scenarios. He "chapters" each section with some of the structure of Dante's "Inferno", which is genius. To say this film is merely a statement on fascism would be wrong, it is a manifesto on what cruelty rests within all human-hearts. Pasolini understood that, under the right-circumstances, we are all capable of these depredations. Some reviewers have stated they didn't find the film shocking--they should check-themselves into a clinic somewhere. I've noticed that even friends who are into such directors as Takashi Miike, respect the power of this film. Miike has some similarities-in-style with Pasolini, but goes for a more genre, stylized-look. Even John Waters lists this film as sicker than his worst-offenders! To say I was shocked would be an understatement.

Besides being pretty s

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom fmovies. I'm going to keep this short. If you want to see Salo simply to see what all the hype is about, keep your $600. Or rent it. If you can find it. I happen to own the Criterion release that is now being ripped and sold on Ebay for $400-600 bucks. Is it worth it? No. Is any film? No. Is it an excellent film? Absolutely.

Try not to think of Pasolini's masterpiece as a shock-for-shock's sake project and you'll truly understand the horror that is Salo. While the depiction of violence, sodomy, corpophagia, eye-gouging, scalping, nipple burning with candles, etc. etc. is horrific it is Pasolini's treatment of the boys and girls that is much more horrifying.

The monsters that occupy this small space of two hours, the fascists, are more human that their victims. We are given no insight into the lives of these children, while we are shown at great length the heads of state personal histories and sadistic proclivities.

Salo has stood the test of time because of it's unflinching portrayal of human violence and idealism, and the fact that, as the Criterion collection states: "Moral redemption may be nothing but a myth." Be warned: for many, Salo is a film not easily shaken off after a single viewing.

This is a tough one. Pasolini was a very complicated man. He was murdered in still-unexplained circumstances shortly after the film was completed. I was 10 years old when this movie was finished, but I only saw it now. Despite being almost 30 years old, Salo is probably the most cruel and repulsive film ever made, not just here in Italy but in the whole world. It depicts the worse atrocities inflicted to humans by humans. The true dark side of human nature: When evil is born out of simple boredom, when it comes naturally. It is a film that I don't want to see ever again, but at the same time I'm glad it was made. I thought hated it at first, but I now I realized is not true. Of course I don't love it either. I can't decide how to judge it. I don't like the cinematography or the acting. But it was definitely one of the most profound emotional experiences of revulsion I've had in a film. It is a necessary evil if you can endure it.

"Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom" (1975): Be prepared for one of the roughest films you'll ever see. This was Pasolini's last, and going by what I've seen, his vision only became bleaker and more disturbed as the years clawed along. Using the Marquis de Sade's ideas on the decadence of 18th century France, Pasolini represents Fascist Italy (1944-45). We are shown the upper class – always removed and protected from the outer world – as predators of the poor, weak, young, and less educated. A group of wealthy adults shop amongst the kidnapped older children of bourgeoisie. They choose eighteen, and steal them away to a hidden mansion, where there is no escape. There, the adults live out every twisted fantasy they've ever had or can now muster, while demeaning, raping, and torturing the youngsters. The teens react in many ways, none of which are "pretty". This entire film experience MUST be viewed as a symbolic, emotional "explanation" of what it was like to live under Nazi/Fascist rule (in this case), and how an otherwise normal, decent society could be turned into lunatics and sub-animals. Although made 30 years ago (with the usual weaker production qualities of that era), I cannot think of another work which so blatantly and painfully illustrates what those in power are capable of doing when boredom gives rein to impulse. In comparison, "Lord of the Flies" barely lights upon these issues, "Pink Flamingos" was but a tiny, kitschy springboard, and "Schindler's List" described a much narrower range of degradation. To this day, "Salo: …" is banned in some countries. This is NOT a film about acting, lighting, sound, camera work, etc.. This is a film about states of mind – theirs then, ours now. P.S.: If you are interested in set design, this one is FILLED with original Cubist/Bauhaus/Futurist/Moderne furnishings, murals, and art. Spectacular. Those styles were not yet being reproduced, so Pasolini used the real thing. There is also an interesting use of a Charles Rennie MacIntosh chair…which will alter how you see this design from here on out.