Cinefantastique Online

For the masochists among you (and I am barely speaking figuratively), here is a film that surely sets some kind of record for disgusting on screen debauchery: SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM, the final directorial effort from the great Pier Paolo Pasolini. Intended to be read as a caustic commentary on the evils of Fascism, SALO is marred by the uneasy perception that Pasolini (rather like purveyors of modern Torture Porn) is simply getting off on the abuse he visualizes with such delight. Pasolini refuses to throw his audience any kind of lifeline that will pull them through the movie with some some understanding or insight about why they are being assaulted; he simply relies on the setting to provide context and, presumably, “meaning” to the nearly continuous degradation. The result is an exceptionally unpleasant viewing experience, although the film does have its fans and defenders.

Besides being a great filmmaker, Pasolini was a radical communist with a penchant for creating scandalous, outrageous works of art. Yet he crafted a trio of traditional films based on classic literature (DECAMERON, CANTEBURY TALES, 1001 NIGHTS). Apparently desperate to re-establish his bona fides as a provocateur, he took DeSade’s novel and set it in the closing days of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, telling the tale of a corrupt group of officials who head to an isolated retreat where they torture and sexually abuse young boys for the rest of the film, climaxing in an orgy of murder before the Allied forces can arrive and rescue anyone. The pretty much plotless result is not a horror film in the traditional sense, but it is as horrific as anything ever presented on screen and may be regarded as the progenitor of the modern “Torture Porn” film (although Pasolini would probably balk at the connection).

SALO is one of those films that is the beneficiary of a weird intersection between life and art. Pasolini was murdered shortly after completing the film; although there was probably no connection between the film and the crime, the mind cannot help forming forming some kind of link, which seems to give SALO a resonance which it would not otherwise have. Pasolini was himself gay, and his alleged murderer (who confessed but later recanted) defended himself by saying he was rebuffing Pasolini’s unwanted advances. This homophobic defense would sound laughable if not for SALO, which is one is one of Pasolini’s few films in which he dealt with homosexuality: What, if anything, are we to make of the fact that he presented it in terms of rape and child sexual abuse, as a power trip in which decadent authoritarians play out their disguting fantasies with helpless young boys as their toys? Is it some kind of bizarre confessional or merely a stinging assault on the depths to which Fascism can sink? Pasolini offers no obvious moral; he merely rubs his audience’s collective nose in filth.

SALO is a film that must be seen to be believed, which is not to say it is entertaining in any conventional sense; it’s more like an endurance test that you pass so you can say you did it, and then never look back. I would not exactly recommend the film, but when you look around at contemporary cinematic efforts like HOSTEL, you have to think that SALO might be relevant in some skewed way.

 CRITICAL REACTION

SALO did not exactly warm the hearts of critics, although some may have bent over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt, partly because of his earlier work and partly because his death rendered this his final film, meaning it had to carry a weight it would not otherwise have shouldered - a fact that the New York Times’ Vincent Canby acknowledged in his 1977 review before going on to write:

 Mr. Pasolini has made a very significant change in updating this work, however. The four hosts—the duke, the president, the magistrate and the bishop—are now Fascists, expressing their ultimate desires as the world is crumbling around them in the last days of the fascist regime. They are no longer rebelling against God. They are demonstrating the evil of the human spirit, which is something else entirely, though I can’t help but feel that de Sade and Mr. Pasolini share a peculiar delight in speculating about the specific details of this evil.

For all of Mr. Pasolini’s desire to make “Salo” an abstract statement, one cannot look at images of people being scalped, whipped, gouged, slashed, covered with excrement and sometimes eating it and react abstractedly unless one shares the director’s obsessions.

Far from being the “agonized scream of total despair” the New York Film Festival calls the film, it is a demonstration of nearly absolute impotency, if there is such a thing. Ideas get lost in a spectacle of such immediate reality and cruelty.

Since then, the film’s critical reputation has expanded if the 75% rating at Rotten Tomatoesis to be believed. In en excellent example of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” phenomenon, current reviewers seem eager to excuse the exploitation on the grounds that it serves as some kind of metaphore. On the other hand, a few holdouts still respond to what the film actually is, rather than after-the-fact rationalizations about what it means. Responding to a 2000 re-release in England, Michael Thomson at BBC wrote:

Notionally a metaphor for Fascism (it is set in Italy in 1944), and specifically about the connection between politics, violence, and sexual excitement, “Salò” has in fact no meaningful link to Fascism whatsoever, but is simply a display of twisted lust, spun by the fantasies of four extreme perverts, not to mention the director himself.Clearly Pasolini (who could either be exceptionally inspired or – as here – absolutely dire) had hit the creative buffers, and so – in his tale of four power-mad, sexually-warped members of the ruling elite – seems to relish serving up endless examples of the most gruesome conduct, which include the forced consumption of food spiked with nails, nipples being branded, and – most ghastly of all – the consumption of excrement. Needless to say, the young men and women horrifically abused by the four condescending establishment tyrants are treated like so much available meat.

If there is one great achievement in SALO, it is that Pasolini pulled all of this off in the guise of an art film, luring in critics who would snear at the thought of sitting through a traditional grindhouse exploitation double feature.

SALO, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975). Directed by Pier Paolo Pasoline. Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasonini, Sergio Citti (IMDB mentions an uncredited Pupi Avati), inspired by the work of the Marquis DeSade. Cast: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa De Giorgi, Helen Surgere, Sonia Saviange.