In World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to one hundred and twenty days of physical, mental and sexual torture.
An aging porn star agrees to participate in an "art film" in order to make a clean break from the business, only to discover that he has been drafted into making a pedophilia and necrophilia themed snuff film.
Director:
Srdjan Spasojevic
Stars:
Srdjan 'Zika' Todorovic,
Sergej Trifunovic,
Jelena Gavrilovic
Ancient Arabia. A youth is chosen by a beautiful slave girl to be her new master; she is kidnapped and they must search for each other. Stories are told within stories; love, travel and the whims of destiny.
A grieving couple retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage, but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.
Director:
Lars von Trier
Stars:
Willem Dafoe,
Charlotte Gainsbourg,
Storm Acheche Sahlstrøm
Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass.
Director:
Gaspar Noé
Stars:
Monica Bellucci,
Vincent Cassel,
Albert Dupontel
The life of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew. Pasolini shows Christ as a Marxist avant-la-lettre and therefore uses half of the text of Matthew.
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is ... See full summary »
A young woman's quest for revenge against the people who kidnapped and tormented her as a child leads her and a friend, who is also a victim of child abuse, on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity.
Two dramatic stories. In an undetermined past, a young cannibal (who killed his own father) is condemned to be torn to pieces by some wild beasts. In the second story, Julian, the young son... See full summary »
Director:
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Stars:
Pierre Clémenti,
Jean-Pierre Léaud,
Alberto Lionello
Nazi-Fascist Northern Italy, 1943-44. Four senior members of government, aided by henchmen and Nazi soldiers, kidnap a group of young men and women. They hold them for 120 days, subjecting them to all manner of torture, perversion and degradation.Written by
grantss
Essential Bibliography: Roland Barthes: 'Sade, Fourier, Loyola' (Editions du Seuil); Maurice Blanchot: "Lautréamont et Sade' (Editions de Minuit; in Italy Dedalo Libri); Simone de Beauvoir: 'Faut-il brûler Sade' (Editions Gaimard); Pierre Klossowski: 'Sade mon prochain, le philosophe scélérat' (Editions du Seuil; in Italy SugarCo Edizioni); Philippe Sollers: 'L'écriture et l'experience des limites' (Editions du Seuil) See more »
Alternate Versions
Salo has had a colorful history with Australian censorship boards. It was banned in Australia for 18 years before being re-submitted for a classification with the Office of Film and Literature (OFLC) in December 1992. It was then banned again by the full board of classifiers. The distributor at the time, Premium Films, appealed the decision to the Classification Review Board in early 1993. This Review Board lifted the ban and granted it an uncut cinema release with an R rating. It enjoyed a stint at arthouse cinemas in 1993, and again in 1996. The conservative Queensland Attorney-General, who caught wind of this re-release, applied for a review of the film in 1997 with the OFLC. They initially confirmed its R rating. The Attorney-General, unhappy with this decision, applied to the Classification Review Board for a complete review of its classification. This Board decided to ban it again. A DVD version was submitted in 2010 and passed by the Classification board as an R18+ on the basis of "176 minutes of additional material of behind-the-scenes footage which served to give the film context and reinforce its fictional nature", and this R18+ was confirmed by the Classification Review Board. See more »
Reportedly, when the executives of one, now defunct, American film company saw "Saló", which they helped co-finance and had distribution rights on, they were so disturbed and embarrassed that they didn't know what to do. Are we going to release this thing? With our company name on it? Where?
They had to show that they released it somewhere in the U.S. or territories.
So they did. In a small theater in El Condado area near San Juan, Puerto Rico.
There's where I saw it. In the mid-70's. With the film company's name on it.
Is it any good? Well, I'm no great admirer of Pasolini. Frankly, I find his movies intolerable. And "Saló" is no exception. But, unlike his Trilogy of Life ("The Decameron", "Canterbury Tales", "Arabian Nights") where he at least displayed some flair and humor, this one is a different animal.
His style was always somewhat ponderous. In "Saló" it is heavily, oppressively didactic: static tableaux-style framing, a deliberately slow pace, no humor whatsoever, and actors who don't play characters but conceits. Although Pasolini uses De Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" as scaffolding and as a pointed commentary, "Saló" is actually based on real events that happened in the Republic of Saló in Northern Italy, where a group of wealthy fascists abducted a large group of young men and women, went on to debase them, and after they were done with them they killed them. Pasolini staged all the scenes as demonstrations of degradation and cruelty. And he does not flinch.
At the end he includes a bibliography.
It's an unpleasant experience.
Clearly, Pasolini, an award-winning poet and one of the leading intellectuals of his time, was very angry when he did this moving picture. He wanted to send a message to Italy and to the world.
It was his last film.
Months later he was murdered.
After several weeks of being in release, the theater was raided by our local vice authorities.
23 of 33 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
Reportedly, when the executives of one, now defunct, American film company saw "Saló", which they helped co-finance and had distribution rights on, they were so disturbed and embarrassed that they didn't know what to do. Are we going to release this thing? With our company name on it? Where?
They had to show that they released it somewhere in the U.S. or territories.
So they did. In a small theater in El Condado area near San Juan, Puerto Rico.
There's where I saw it. In the mid-70's. With the film company's name on it.
Is it any good? Well, I'm no great admirer of Pasolini. Frankly, I find his movies intolerable. And "Saló" is no exception. But, unlike his Trilogy of Life ("The Decameron", "Canterbury Tales", "Arabian Nights") where he at least displayed some flair and humor, this one is a different animal.
His style was always somewhat ponderous. In "Saló" it is heavily, oppressively didactic: static tableaux-style framing, a deliberately slow pace, no humor whatsoever, and actors who don't play characters but conceits. Although Pasolini uses De Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" as scaffolding and as a pointed commentary, "Saló" is actually based on real events that happened in the Republic of Saló in Northern Italy, where a group of wealthy fascists abducted a large group of young men and women, went on to debase them, and after they were done with them they killed them. Pasolini staged all the scenes as demonstrations of degradation and cruelty. And he does not flinch.
At the end he includes a bibliography.
It's an unpleasant experience.
Clearly, Pasolini, an award-winning poet and one of the leading intellectuals of his time, was very angry when he did this moving picture. He wanted to send a message to Italy and to the world.
It was his last film.
Months later he was murdered.
After several weeks of being in release, the theater was raided by our local vice authorities.