Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

CinemaSerfAug 2022

2.5

Well you have to hand it to Pier Paolo Pasolini - he had one hell of an imagination. Here he devises a story of a group of nine young men and women who are apprehended by four powerful Fascist officials and held captive for use in some of the most degrading and painful games of sex, humiliation and abuse. I was warned not to eat chocolate before I saw this, and towards the end of this bizarre depiction of cruelty, depravity and exploitation it became quite clear why - and I'd reiterate that here. There is something profoundly desperate about the film. It has nothing even vaguely redeeming about it. Is it allegorical? Perhaps Pasolini is swiping at what he perceived to be the beginning of the disposable culture? Perhaps the illustration of mankind at it's more obscene offers us his perspective on just what humanity had become by the mid 1970s? In any case, this is frankly rather a disgusting film to watch and though I did feel the ending had a great deal of suitable retribution to it, I still struggled to quite get my head around this epitome of man's inhumanity to their own kind. I doubt I shall ever watch it again, but it packed out the cinema in which I watched it and there was plenty of provocative conversation in the bar about it afterwards...

Wow! You can't escape the fact that this movie pushes the limits of disturbing art! Many will call it sick. I suspect the point of this film is more about the depravity and dehumanization of fascism, political corruption, totalitarianism, and morality. I have not read the Marquis de Sade's work on which this film was based. **It isn't possible to "un-see" a film, so be prepared if you choose the experience.** It was described to me as "horror" before I watched it, and I'm not sure it truly captures the film's genre. I can't think of a film genre that adequately describes it. I will probably never watch it again or forget the images it seared on my brain. But I was challenged to think about various political and societal themes that are still very relevant today.