Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom
(1976)
Four corrupt Italian noblemen, in the final days of the Third Reich, decide to have a little fun. Securing four of the most notorious madams available, and rounding up a few Nazi soldiers, they forcibly procure eighteen Italian teenagers and repair to a secluded villa for some "fun and games." The fun and games include torture, degradation, rape, the eating of feces, murder and more. All of it endured with little or no complaint from the captives.
"Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom" is by design among the most controversial films ever made. Pier Paolo Pasolini, tired of grinding out safe, mainstream humanistic fare such as "The Canterbury Tales" and "Arabian Nights," vowed to push the envelope as far as he could, with American money no less. Taking the Marquis de Sade's most infamous novel (smuggled out of prison written on toilet paper in the 18th century, it remains a classic of perversion) and updating it to his native Italy, Pasolini strived to simultaneously shock the world and purge old feelings he harbored after Mussolini blackshirts murdered his older brother during WW II. The result is a film that is notorious for emptying out theaters in record time. Auditoriums holding 200 are reduced to a hardcore audience of twelve in just under an hour -- and it is from this hardcore audience of twelve that "Salo" garners its cult reputation.
Words cannot adequately describe the film. Somehow, somewhere, the filmmakers convinced people to pour what was obviously millions of dollars to re-enact scenes of homosexual rape, a feast of human shit, and the scalping and garroting of young people. "Salo" is a classic example of "Sleep of Reason" filmmaking . . . . if one wonders how "Plan Nine From Outer Space" was made, what of "Salo?"
Your reviewer insists that you MUST see this film. Words cannot adequately describe the images and horror contained therein. There have been countless films of its stripe -- "Men Behind the Sun," "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS," etc. What separates "Salo" from these gag-fests is in the handing of its victims. The Italian teenagers comply with their keeps' whims without protest. Pasolini intended to indict complacent Italian society that tolerated fascism. The vast majority of Italians believed he deserved his fate when he was murdered by a male hustler immediately following the film's completion. Said hustler was later released from prison!
Film theft prevented Pasolini from including an ending where the fascist tormentors "got theirs." "Salo's" ending, as it stands, was one to make shock director's John Waters' eyes openly weep. Very few would argue that "Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom" is simultaneously the ugliest -- and most beautiful film in all of cinema.
by Greg Goodsell (1998)
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