Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom



"We fascists are the only true anarchists."

- The Duke

"Finally, a film of truly graphic, pretentious, and amazing sensationalism that I can fully get behind it. Oh, sure, Pier Pasolini's Salò may gross us out from time to time; but here is a film that shows us the depths of human depravity and the corruption of power at the hands of fascists...and...and... (Vomits into his toilet)"

- The Cinema Snob, beginning his review

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, is a 1975 Italian art film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, based on the Marquis de Sade's even nastier novel The 120 Days of Sodom. It has a reputation for being one of the single most vile, depraved, despicable, infamous and controversial films in cinema history.

The film transplants the book's plot from 18th Century France to the Nazi-controlled Italian state of Salò in 1944 during World War II and is divided into four chapters, inspired by Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit and the Circle of Blood. In the final days of Benito Mussolini's regime four fascist libertines known as the Duke, the Bishop, the Magistrate and the President abuse their last days of power by abducting nine boys and nine girls from the local countryside and, accompanied by four conscripted prostitutes, bringing them to a deserted villa to subject them to 120 days of pure, extremely violent torture.

To this day, opinions vary as to the film's goal: is it trashy, repulsing shlock bordering on child porn or a legitimate piece of art and satire on fascism? Some interpret the film as Pasolini's warning of the evils of man to the entire human race.

This was Pasolini's last movie. Shortly before its release he was murdered by being run down with his own car. Some say he was murdered by an extortionist who got his hands on Salò film rolls, others say it was by a teenage male prostitute whom Pasolini had attempted to hit on, a third group says that a trio killed him over his political views. The truth of the murder is sadly a cold case to this day.


 * Author Appeal: Some critics insist that Pasolini made the film to appease his tastes, as de Sade did by writing the original book. Pasolini was indeed gay, but no one knew if he had rape or faeces fetishes.
 * Bowdlerization: Compared to Sade's novel, the atrocities in the movie are quite tame; no scenes of mutilation, necrophilia, and cannibalism as described in the source material to be found here.
 * Depraved Bisexual: The four libertines and the four prostitutes.
 * Everyone Is Bi: The four libertines and four prostitutes are all bi, and they seem to assume that everybody else is one too.
 * Exploitation Film: Averted. Despite its subject matter and being a 70's movie, the film was not so much made to make money at grindhouses so much as it as art. At least, so did Pasolini insist.
 * Gorn: Also averted; there isn't much blood or gore in the film. A girl gets scalped and a guy gets his eye gouged out, but the scenes are very brief and shot from afar.
 * Transvestite: The four libertines don women's clothes at one point, and one of the male victims is forced to wear a wedding dress.
 * Torture Porn: Being (supposedly) an art film might counter-argue this, but the film is still generally regarded as such.
 * X Meets Y: The Aristocrats meets Hostel.