SALÓ OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (Saló o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma) (1975) - ♦♦♦♦♦
Directed by - Pier Paolo Pasolini"For decades, SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM
The story is based on the works by MARQUIS DE SADE, and PASOLINI himself said that he was as interested about sadomasochism as DE SADE was. But he also chose to use the extreme sexual allegory to represent a concept quite unique for its time. Many dealt with the psychological terror inflicted by authority on people, but not many at all took it upon them to represent the physical consummation of oppression at the hands of the powerful. That is exactly what SALO does, taking place in the temporary setting titular setting of Northern Italy that was an improvised established Fascist resort in which Mussolini was left and soon after caught and executed in public by the Italians.
But the historical context is only marginal, and etheral, inspired by the filmmaker's own traumatic experience of the war and his own repulsion of anything that had to do with the far right. The narrative is equally arguably as unimportant. There is no true development in a conventional sense, in a film that simply chronicles the revolting practices of the household in which a group of young boys and girls are kidnapped and forced to be toys of the imagination of powerful politicians and religious figures, driven forward by a series of stories that fire up their imagination.
SALO is a disturbing film, a vision of hopelessness that sinks into deeper and more degrading territories as it progresses, culminating in a near unwatchable final torture sequence. The shock value of the images is clear and in its way legendary, but the immediacy of the dialogue is something that PASOLINI's last film is hardly ever praised for. Its obviousness reveals the moral decadence of the perpetrators of these acts, and accompanies their deeds with such frankness that seen on pure cinematic terms is all the more unsettling.
This is also ultimately what makes SALO so hard to watch to this day, in an age when violence and sexual depravation is not as hard to come across. It creates a compact background tension and a sense of human futility that offers no positive way of being resolved. There is a scene where, one of the boy's behaviours irates the authority so much that they hold a gun to his head. The trigger is pulled on him, but no shot is fires. The monsignor, delighted by the pathetic scene laughs in scorn at him, telling him that if they could they would kill him over and over. The only way out of the mansion in SALO is death, but even that seems unachievable.
The carefully composed shots, mostly still, reveal a haunting lack of emotion. A jazzy soundtrack by ENNIO MORRICONE seems an unusual punctuation that is built upon similar contrasts presented in horror films of the time."
Drama, Italy/France
