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Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma)

Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) (1975)

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 2

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65

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 14,150

My Rating

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

Aug 11, 1998

Water Bearer Films Inc.

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All Critics (25) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (8) | DVD (13)

It's very hard to sit through and offers no insights whatsoever into power, politics, history or sexuality. Nasty stuff.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comments (2)
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Very hard to take, but in its own way an essential work.

October 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

May 9, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comments (4)
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I can't think of a reason in the world that anyone should subject him or herself to this.

January 7, 2012 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment (1)
Combustible Celluloid

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.

October 27, 2011 Full Review Source: Scene-Stealers.com
Scene-Stealers.com

A bracing cinematic buzzkill, Salò will wipe that shit-eating grin right off your face.

October 7, 2011 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

By reputation alone, owning Salò should be enough to impress your cinephilic friends; watching it with them will be whole lot harder.

September 30, 2010 Full Review Source: sbs.com.au
sbs.com.au

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.

July 11, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com
ColeSmithey.com

While it is easy to think of Salò as simply depraved, it is ultimately a savage plea for humanity

September 19, 2008 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk
Q Network Film Desk

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.

August 27, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter | Comments (12)
ESplatter

Hate ****.

August 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

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.

August 25, 2008 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom is one of the most uncomfortable experiences you will have with an arguably classic film.

August 21, 2008 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com
DVDTalk.com

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.

May 14, 2008 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

The result, despite moments of undeniably brilliant insight, is nearly unwatchable, extremely disturbing, and often literally nauseous.

October 23, 2007 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

There are absolutely fascinating ways of reading and understanding this Pasolini epic. But would I ever want to watch it again? Probably not.

September 10, 2005
Zap2it.com

Shocking film.

June 15, 2005 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Audience Reviews for Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma)

'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.
October 30, 2012
Jack Hawkins
Jack Hawkins

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.
June 8, 2012
Lucas Martins

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Salò oder Die 120 Tage von Sodom (DE)
  • Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (UK)
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