- Directors: Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Format: Anamorphic, PAL
- Language Italian
- Subtitles: English
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 2
- Classification: 18
- Studio: Bfi
- DVD Release Date: 29 Sep 2008
- Run Time: 116 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B001BOA2MA
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 21,732 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom (known in Italian as Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) provoked howls of outrage and execration on its original release in 1975, and the controversy rages to this day. Until the British Board of Film Classification finally ventured a certificate in 2000, the movie could only be shown at private cinema clubs, and even then in severely mutilated form. The relaxation of the censors' shears allows you to see for yourself what the fuss was about, but be warned--Salò will test the very limits of your endurance. Updating the Marquis de Sade's phantasmagorical novel of the same title from 18th-century France to fascist Italy at the end of World War II, writer-director Pasolini relates a bloodthirsty fable about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Four upper-class libertines gather in an elegant palazzo to inflict the extremes of sexual perversion and cruelty upon a hand-picked collection of young men and women. Meanwhile, three ageing courtesans enflame the proceedings further by spinning tales of monstrous depravity. The most upsetting aspect of the film is the way Pasolini's coldly voyeuristic camera dehumanises the victims into lumps of random flesh. Though you may feel revulsion at the grisly details, you aren't expected to care much about what happens to either master or slave. In one notorious episode, the subjugated youths are forced to eat their own excrement--a scene almost impossible to watch, even if you know the meal was actually composed of chocolate and orange marmalade. (Pasolini mischievously claimed to be satirising our modern culture of junk food.) Salò is the ultimate vision of apocalypse--and as if in confirmation, the director was himself brutally murdered just before its premiere. You can reject the movie as the work of an evil-minded pornographer, but you won't easily forget it. --Peter Matthews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
124 of 136 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Descent Into The Empyrean,
By
This review is from: Salo [DVD] (DVD)
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.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful quality dvd, not exactly an enjoyable film,
By Ali (Beirut) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Salo [DVD] (DVD)
It's hard to rate a title like "120 Days of Sodom." Technically speaking it is a fine film, but with 'salo' the technical aspects aren't what is really important, and unless you are a film student/maker, you wont notice them. For people who are fascinated with evil, who don't turn away from bloody car wrecks or photos of mutilated bodies on the news, "Salo" should prove to be hypnotic viewing. I admit to being fascinated by the minds of seriel killers, and equally fascinated hearing about all the bizarre sexual fetishes in the world. But 'Salo" transends all that, to the point where it is no longer entertainment, and it becomes genuinely uncomfortable to watch. uncomfortable because we as a race are forced to see what we are capable of, if driven to extremes. There seems to be only one shred of optimism in the film; a short scene where an imprisoned teen breaks down in tears and her friend tries to comfort her. That's it. The rest of this exercise in hate is filled with fury, disgust, and an absolute contempt for anything good or innocent. But if you pay attention, you will notice that the evil adults of this story, inevitbly fail to corrupt and rob the children of their innocence. for never do the kids stop being terrified and sickened at what they ar witnessing. Even when they are being murdered at the films completion, their cries and desperate screams still sound like those of normal, innocent kids trapped in a vile world that they dont understand. The fact that these young actors are so beautiful makes the film more painful to watch. i originally bought the film because of the actor Franco Merli, who played the shephard boy from "The Arabian Nights," whose slave Zumerrud has been stolen from him. He was so great in that, with his off kilter beauty and crooked teeth, i thought he was perfect for his role. to see him being raped and having his tongue ripped out of his skull are images that i will never forget, images that made me extremely angry. Pasoloni must have been a very unhappy man, and an angry one at that, to turn his back on such great works as "Arabian Nights.' Turning ones back on that film is like turning your back on life itself. Hard to believe the creator of the most beautiful film ever made, could be responsible for "120 days of Sodom." Still, i recommend this film for completists, or fans of dark cinema. dont expect any prurient thrills here, in spite of the non-stop nudity. If you are like this viewer, you will walk away feeling a great sadness in the pit of your soul. On a side note, the Bfi twin dvd set is beautiful and is the only truly complete version of the film. It even has a scene the Criterion version is missing. Included is a thick booklet loaded with photos and information, and the extras are great too.
66 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing masterpiece,
By A Customer
This review is from: Salo [VHS] (VHS Tape)
'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.
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