Criterion Collection: Salo Or 120 Days of Sodom [Blu-ray] [1975] [US Import]

There are few movies out there, if any, that can generate as much ire and disgust as Pasolini's "Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma". Over the years, the film has created this almost mythical quality around itself, if mostly for the fact that it's still banned / badly cut in many countries around the World (Including Australia; so much for the Enlightenment). Not so for us lucky Brits - The BBFC has passed the uncut edition since the Halcyon Days of 2000, when I was lucky enough to view it on Film4 late at night. Make no mistakes, if any film has the ability to transform you into a gibbering, crying mess, it's this one.

Not for the Faint-Hearted? You'd better believe it.

And thus, it's hard to really "recommend" this film to anyone, as you wouldn't really "recommend" divorce - But it's a life experience you can gain valuable knowledge from. The film takes it's inspiration / Modus Operandi from the Marquis De Sade's notorious novel "The 120 Days of Sodom" , which, if you have read it, you will know perfectly well what you can expect from the film. Transporting the setting to Mussolini-Era Fascist Italy, four Aristocratic Libertines subject their young subjects to Sexual Manipulation and Torture, both physical and psychological. Pasolini does not shun from showing these in all their brightest colours, and considering that the great man was murdered mere months after the film's premiere, it can be surmised that it raised much anger amongst those artistically inclined. Watch at your peril, without Mother and Children preferably.

Notes on the 2-Disc BFI edition itself - The film has been released before, on Criterion and BFI in the '90s. Both were of poor quality and, thanks to Pasolini's estate revoking Criterion's rights to sell the film, made this edition the rarest / most expensive in the World; well, no longer a problem. The BFI has ported over the Criterion release mainly (Here's hoping it isn't a direct NTSC-to-PAL port, the quality will suffer), apart from one particular bonus: a 25-second sequence that has never been released before showing a reading of a Gottfried Benn poem. Nothing remarkable, but it's something.

It's been said before that for Art to be effective, it must be dangerous. "Salò" is more dangerous than Ebola.

OK, so this film is not classed as "normal" horror, but that is possibly the best way to consider this piece of art (some may not call it that, by the way). Disturbing, shocking, graphic; all words which can be appropriately applied to it.

As others have mentioned, it is extremely difficult to recommend it or rate it. I have tried to base my rating therefore on the relative importance of the right of film makers to produce art. Many viewers may dislike or even loathe this film, but that should not stop producers from having the right to make such films. There is a serious message, it is not gratuitous - if you consider the film as a whole.

But be warned. This is a very visceral film. Worthwhile, but disturbing nonetheless - it may stick with you for longer than you want.

'Salo' is one of the few films I've seen that on one hand is compulsive (in a rubbernecking kinda way) and repulsive. The tone is probably the darkest I've ever seen in a film- which itself is more disturbing than the violence- which is sickening (by design) but not throwaway nihilistic like Tarantino, Arnie or 'Black Hawk Down'...Viewing is aided by the excellent '120 Days of Sodom' and the accompanying essays (some reccomended in the title sequence here). But don't worry- this film says very little- over and over again. Which is its message...Pasolini places a Dantean-triptych onto Sade's text, reducing the 120 days to 3 (which feel like forever)and setting it to the fascist backdrop of Salo during World War II. Not that this is a historical film- the comment on the allure of Fascism to Italy is one that recurs. Here Pasolini dispenses with the celebration of life offerred in films like 'Medea', 'The Decameron' & 'The Canterbury Tales'. This is like 'Porcille' magnified or the design of 'Theorum' applied to the horrors of fascism in practice...The film begins with the sole beautiful shot of a harbour-which could have come from Antonioni or Bertolucci. Then the libertines marry each others daughters, kidnap (?) the peasants who will become the ****ers (though we think they are to be the victims.), audition their victims and transplant them to the hell of an unseen machine-like world. This is where the rape and torture and ****eating begins (though Pasolini puts the latter down to a comment on fast-food consumption). There are lots of scenes of sexual depravity, prosthetic-penises and an oblique reference to Communism. Then, the Circle of Blood- which is horror in its truest sense. The black-comic punchline of the two dancing f***ers asking about each others girlfriend makes this film all the more horrifying...That said, because a film's subject is abhorrent should not mean you can dismiss this major work. I feel it is all the more pertinent when we consider such events as Pinochet's Chile, the atrocities in the Balkans and the backward-spectre of the Holocaust. This film depicts the philosophy of power in its most dominant, vile sense. It is unsuprising that this was Pasolini's final film- he would be murdered in suspicious circumstances (see 'Whoever Speaks the Truth Shall Die')and this is an assault on the world he lived in. Along with 'Accatone','The Gospel According to St Matthew', 'La Ricotta','Mamma Roma' and 'Theorum' this is one of Pasolini's major works. And one that people should watch to see the true power of cinema.