Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) (1979)
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Movie Info
The final work of notorious Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, this film updates the Marquis de Sade's most extreme novel to fascist Italy in the final days of WW II. Dispensing with the novel's meditations on sexual liberation and the search for truth, Pasolini presents four decadents who kidnap dozens of young men and women and subject them to the most hideous forms of torture and perversion in an isolated villa. Rape, murder, and a coprophagic banquet are only the beginning of the … More- Rating:
- NC-17
- Genre:
- Drama , Horror , Art House & International
- Directed By:
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- In Theaters:
- Jan 1, 1979 Wide
- On DVD:
- Aug 11, 1998
- Runtime:
Cast
-
Paolo Bonacelli
as The Duke -
Giorgio Cataldi
as The Bishop -
Umberto Paolo Quinta...
as Chief Magistrate -
Aldo Valletti
as The President -
Caterina Boratto
as Signora Castelli
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Critic Reviews for Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma)
All Critics (26) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (18) | Rotten (8) | DVD (13)
It's very hard to sit through and offers no insights whatsoever into power, politics, history or sexuality. Nasty stuff.
Very hard to take, but in its own way an essential work.
A perfect example of the kind of material that, theoretically, anyway, can be acceptable on paper but becomes so repugnant when visualized on the screen that it further dehumanizes the human spirit, which is supposed to be the artist's concern.
It... speaks to the authoritarian abuses of twentieth-century history - but it has also, thanks to the chilling (and unflinching) way in which it presents grotesque atrocity, proven as difficult as feces for censors to swallow whole, if at all.
I can't think of a reason in the world that anyone should subject him or herself to this.
Pasolini illustrates his belief that society forces people to conform by making his victims turn on each other, then making the audience complicit. Just by watching, we are voyeurs, and Pasolini calls us out in the movie's final moments.
By reputation alone, owning Salò should be enough to impress your cinephilic friends; watching it with them will be whole lot harder.
Dramatically feral and artistically fertile, "Salo" is a rigorous movie that dares to use the metaphor of torture as a device of utter physical and psychological annihilation for both the victim and the torturer.
Intended to be read as a caustic commentary on the evils of Fascism, Salo is marred by the uneasy perception that Pasolini (rather like purveyors of modern Torture Porn) is simply getting off on the abuse he visualizes with such delight.
Fastidiously attuned to the denial of the comforting release of either eroticism or expulsion, Pasolini's boudoirs of perversion lack De Sade's scarlet hedonism. Quite the opposite, his boners reveal only the presence of spiritual rigor mortis.
There's a sense of pure evil clinging to the film like nothing I've ever experienced. I do not believe this is unintentional, nor do I believe it is pointless.
The result, despite moments of undeniably brilliant insight, is nearly unwatchable, extremely disturbing, and often literally nauseous.
There are absolutely fascinating ways of reading and understanding this Pasolini epic. But would I ever want to watch it again? Probably not.
Shocking film.
In all honesty it's a terrible, terrible experience -- but give the guy credit: It's certainly unique.
For Salò, a film genuinely concerned with the nature and power of misanthropy, Pasolini's murder is a conclusive action; it is an example of martyrdom.
A difficult film to watch, but one that forces you to think
I was more intellectually engaged than offended while watching it.
A film from a text which single-handedly defined the term 'unfilmable'
The film stands on its own as an anti-fascist and anti-power statement, if a somewhat raw and confronting one.
Audience Reviews for Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma)
It took nearly 40 years, but we've gotten to a point in modern cinema where looking back on Pasolini's swan song is now a doable, not entirely nauseating task. An essential viewing for any prospective filmmaker.
MoreSuper Reviewer
'Salo' masquerades as some sort of political allegory, but the supposed subtext is just a tenuous excuse for covering a whole spectrum of perversity - it has no purpose apart from to shock and disgust.
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Super Reviewer
A disgusting, extreme and shocking vision by Pier Paolo Pasolini of Marquis de Sade's book. Salo is an uncomfortable and unique experience, that also presents some black humor and humanism. It's a psychological, moral and a metaphor vision of the ditadorship and all the ways of kill the freedom. Unforgettable. Fresh.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Salo, or the 120 Days of Solom is not a film you're likely to seek out on your own. You pretty much have to be goaded into seeing it. It's one of the most controversial films ever made, despite the fact that it's all a work of fiction. It's based on true events (actually, the book it's derived from is), but if you watch the film closely you'll realize just how fictionally well-made it is. I can't begin to defend it on any sort of moral level. If filmmaking had any deadset morals to it then it would a pretty sparse landscape and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. The film has a level of social consciousness to it, despite the vile things taking place in it. It contains enough brutal violence, rape, sadism, torture and coprophagia for ten other films. I can't say I enjoyed the film or that I can recommend it. It's clearly an art film and nothing more, but if you can handle the unpleasantness of it without pure disgust or outrage, then by all means, see it as a work of art.
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Super Reviewer
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