Facts & Figures
* Title: Salò o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma
* English Title: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
* IMDB rating at time of writing: 6.1
* Year: 1975
* Length: 114 minutes
* Country: Italy
* Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
* Producer: Alberto Grimaldi
* Writers: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Citti, Pupi Avati (uncredited), Marquis de Sade (book)
* Cinematography: Tonino delli Colli
* Music: Ennio Morricone
* Cast: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo, Quintavella, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa de Giorgio, Hélène Surgère & Sonia Saviange
Plot summary (Spoiler alert!)
Fascist Italy, 1944. Four powerful men (a duke, a bishop, the local magistrate and the president) agree to a perverted scheme, in which they first marry each other’s daughters and then kidnap 9 young men and 9 young women, who they take to a mansion. They hire four middle-aged women, former prostitutes, who are ordered to recount erotic stories from their past to the men and their new-stolen slaves.
The film follows these men, women and their slaves through the 120 days in their palace, where the men of power physically and mentally torture, rape and humiliate their slaves. This is portrayed in four parts: Anti-inferno, Circle of Manias, Circle of Shit and Circle of Blood, which are presumably inspired by Dante’s Inferno.
In Anti-Inferno the captures and kidnappings of the victims are show, followed by their examinations by the four. Sequence two, the Circle of Manias portrays one of the prostitutes telling erotic stories from her past, going from normal sexual behaviour to scatophilic tales. During and in between these stories, the slaves are humiliated, raped, sodomised and tortured. As the movie goes on, the sequences start becoming more disturbing. In the Circle of Shit, there are scenes showing a young woman forced to eat the Duke’s feces, and later on, all the victims are presented a meal consisting of only human shit.
The last part of the movie, the Circle of Blood, starts with a wedding between the guards and the men of power, followed by more homosexual rape scenes. Later one, when the bishop discovers a girl hiding a photograph, the slaves start betraying each other’s secrets. This series of betrayals ends with the discovery of a relationship between one of the guards and a black servant girl, who both end up getting shot by the men of power.
The movie ends with the victims who did not fully worship their masters getting tortured and mordered in gruesome ways: scalping, branding, having their tongues and eyes cut out, burning and hanging. During this slaughter, the kidnappers take it in turns to watch.
The movie ends with two soldiers, who saw and even helped in the atrocities, dancing a waltz.
Review
First of all, this is one of the most disturbing movies I have seen and probably will see. Most people will be shocked by this movie, and I can very well understand if people stop watching it. Now you may ask: “Is it really that bad? I saw *insert random slasher teen movie*!”. My answer is: Yes, it really is that bad. The movie portrays, in detail, people forced to eat feces, eyes cutting out, tongues cut off, breasts burnt with a candle and a series of rape scenes.
Disturbed though he may have been, the director of this movie clearly knows what he is doing: this film has some stunningly shot sequences, with beautiful contrast. The mansion where all the atrocities happen is situated in northern Italy, where the grass is green and the water is blue. The set-up of each scene is a delight to the eye, with sometimes stunning background and set-decorating.
The story itself is filmed in a linear way, it is easy to follow what happens (although the why will be more difficult to figure out, but more on this later). The four parts of the movie each get more perverted. Part one shows simple kidnapping and murder, while part two goes to rape, part three to sadistic torture and the film ends with physical torture and gruesome, gory murder.
It is clear that the director wants to show the sick things a human mind can do, especially when the person doing the things has all the power. When these men of power combine their resources, there is basically nobody in the country with enough power to do something about it, together they represent the local government, the national government, the church and the aristocracy.
I have had the fortune of finding a remastered version of this DVD, because the original edition isn’t too great a quality, while the remastered version has a hugely improved contrast, color-brightness and just is way less gritty.
Conclusions
First of all, I sincerely hope nobody will watch this movie for their own pleasure. It is however a work of art and for the true cinematic lover, I can recommend seeing at least once, if only for the experience. Don’t watch this lightly, however, I suggest not starting it before dinner or as a good popcorn movie to watch with friends.
I gave this movie 6 stars because, although it is clearly shot as a great work of art, its content makes it impossible to enjoy it as such. If the movie would be about a lighter subject, it could have easily reached 8 or 9 stars. When I have time, I will surely try other films of this director.
