Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini 1975)

A group of Italian fascists gathers some young and pretty / handsome kids in an old mansion and abuses them. Listening to stories of sexual adventures, they rape their victims, make them eat feces and kill them.

Art is also always entertainment. How is this entertainment, how is this art? Let’s say, the allegory is quite clear, and the settings and production design is well ready to depict the animalistic arrogance of those in power. Dominating the weaker humans by even more degrading them seems to be the strategy, and the film does not shy away from exemplifying the forms of degradation that are physically, but also mentally possible.

The film bringing with it the reputation that it does, I was rather distanced, and actually caught myself kind of waiting for the next gore. It is very hard to appreciate this kind of film as it should be, from a position of ignorance, being thrown into a similar downward spiral as my other feelgood movies of the week, “A Serbian Film” and “Killer Inside Me”. Escalation is inevitable, and it arrives with full force. The beautiful music by Ennio Morricone and the strange actors chosen make this an almost surreal piece of … something. I am not sure what.

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.