Day 17: Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

In cinema, there are films that make you cheer, weep, laugh, and even get angry, but “Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom” does something entirely unique- it makes you sick. Considered one of the most profane and controversial films of all time, “Salo” is a disgusting spectacle, almost devoid of a plot entirely. Instead, it spends its length assaulting the mind with the most extreme taboos and making us face these acts of dehumanizing debauchery in the full light of day.

Adapted from the Marquis de Sade’s book, “The 120 Days of Sodom,” with influences of Dante’s “Inferno” thrown in, ”Salo” unleashes a scenario in which, in the ending weeks of WWII, four powerful Fascists retreat to a chateau in the village of “Salo” and begin using innocent teenager men and woman to satisfy their most corrupt desires. Beginning with the “Circle of Obsessions,” both heterosexual and homosexual sex acts take place between the Fascist and their prisoners. After that, they move to the “Circle of Shit,” where people are forced to eat their own feces in dog bowls. And last, but horribly not least, the “Circle of Blood,” in which the kidnapped victims have their skulls smashed, eyeballs sliced out, skin branded, and heads scalped. Upon their victims horrible deaths, the four Fascists dance happily to what they have done.

Yeah…not exactly a light summer movie.

In all honesty, the whole thing was far too much for me to handle. At times, I closed my eyes. At other moments, I walked out of the room- finding myself completely unable to handle what devastation was before me. Unlike slasher movies, which lay out their violence in quick cuts and shadows, director Pier Paolo Pasolini never lets the camera pan away, setting his scenes in bright white rooms where the horrible acts of rape or torture (or both) take place in front of every character in the film. Never is the violence done in private- all must watch, and this leads to the most disturbing revelation of all. While these victims watch the dehumanizing of their peers, they are speechless and, in fact, passive. No one looks shocked or sickened or even sad. They sit and stare and watch like the animals their Fascist “masters” seek to turn them into. So what is worse than watching a person be sodomized? Watching a group of people do nothing about it.

Pasolini came to the idea for this film while in a period of complete artistic crisis. Consumed with his “disappointment in man and God” he began to consider his earlier work as compromised and made in a way that was too easily fed to his audience. To change all this, he decided to make what he called an “indigestible” film- something people could not simply watch and be done with. He wanted them to leave the theater losing a bit of innoncence- to be branded with a horrible inclination of what man can do to his fellow man. Mission accomplished Mr. Pasolini. I’d shake your hand, but I first need a shower.

Final note: When a film like “Salo” is universally banned upon its release in 1975 and “Hostel” makes $47 million in 2005, what does that say about us as a society?

For more information on “Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom” (if you really want it), check out Criterion’s page here.

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