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Directed by: Pier Pasolini Paolo Starring: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi Saló is a loose adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom." The movie was made in 1975 by italian director Pier Pasolini Paolo, and it follows the story of four men in the fascist Italy of World War II who abduct 9 boys and 9 girls and take them to a remote castle in the former province of Saló in order to submit them to 120 days of physical, mental, and sexual torture for their own pleasure. The four central characters are the Duke, the Bishop, the President, and Durcet. We do not know much about them except that they are fascists and libertines to quite an extent. They agree to complete a pact made among them by marrying each other's daughters, and they begin the process of selecting their victims. They go through numerous amounts of children, aged roughly 12 to 15, making them strip before them and bend over so that they can examine every part of their body. They are so particular as to reject one girl simply because she has lost a tooth and has not yet grown in its replacement. The men hire four prostitutes to tell stories of their life while the men listen, and they are allowed to interrupt at any time and do what they desire with the children in order to satisfy them sexually. They also enact a set of rules, stating that any reference to any type of religion is immediately punishable by death, and that any disobedience whatsoever will result in the loss of a limb. By the end of the movie, the prostitutes have gotten to a point where they are recounting tales of murder purely for sexual enjoyment, and the four men proceed to execute the children one by one.  There's no denying that this movie is very hard to watch. Most, if not all, of the movie contains some sort of male or female nudity, and there are numerous sodomizations and scenes that are difficult to watch because of their debasity and depravity. At one point the men have all the naked children attached to leashes and they walk the children around the castle on all fours and have them beg for food as a dog would do. To see the children crawling up the stairs as the men process behind them, leashes in hand, is quite a disturbing sight.  At one point, the prostitute's stories delve into the realm of copraphagia, and the children are forced to eat the excrement of the four men. There is a particular scene of a feast of only the "finest foods," where huge platters of poo poo are wheeled out and placed upon the tables, and the children are forced to eat. The men also force the children to marry each other and then they are to "do what newlyweds do" in front of our four libertines. The the movie's climax is a little offsetting, and that is because it is not there. As the children are being executed, the libertines take turns watching from a tower through binoculars. We see what they see, and thus there is no sound. The only noise comes from an ethereal pianist downstairs, and she commits suicide soon after. We see the children scalped, raped, hanged in silence. The effect is truly disturbing, and the movie ends at that point. We are left with no conclusion, no man to step in and tell us all it was a joke, or a followup stating that the four men were soon found and arrested for their heinous crimes. We are left with the knowledge that these men have not been punished, and that although they were the antagonists and we hated them every moment that they were on screen for what they were doing, they won. Pier Pasolini Paolo was a homosexual himself, and he was murdered shortly after making this movie, right before this movie's release, most likely due to his making of the movie. His body was found in a horribly disfigured state, and a male prostitute admitted to the crime. However, he had a goal with making this movie. It was not made pornographic just for the sake of being so; it was made with an underlying political message. He made the movie as a cry against fascism, and his rage is evident throughout the film. The way he portrays the four fascists in all their sexual libertinage projects his disgust for the way humans can treat other humans. We, as an audience, are also subjected to this rage. We don't care for the children as we should, and we don't feel their plight when they are forced to masturbate one of the libertines or commit other disgusting, incestuous acts. By dehumanizing the characters in the film, Paolo has successfully made us as guilty as the four rich men. By the end of the film, he's posed another situation for us: are we just as bad in our hearts as they are for watching it? I would not recommend this film to anyone who has not prepared for it. It is easily one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen, and I watch and collect horror movies, so I believe I have room to talk here. The men go from having a competition to judge which child has the best rear end to scalping them in a courtyard. It's very hard on the mind, and it makes one think for a while after seeing it. If you can get your hands on a copy, then you are lucky; you've found a classic. It is the rarest DVD in the world, selling for as high as a couple thousand dollars due to its discontinuation from the Criterion Classics series of films. It was pulled from the market shortly after its 1998 DVD release due to copyright issues with Paolo's estate in Italy, so if you want to see this film, your only hope is probably eBay. There are a number of bootlegs circulating for $40-50 a pop, and that's where I got my copy. Good luck, if you wish to see it. 4/5 stars, circles, cans of Dr. Pepper, whatever. RATING: 4 PROS: Quite an excellent political statement, very intense CONS: The film has obviously aged, very intense ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073650/
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May 7, 2006 04:04
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 03:50 |
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There are many different versions of the DVD readily available. http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=2412 Criterion believed they had all their rights in order when they released the DVD, but in fact they did not, so they halted production. Some copies did ship, so the original Criterion version is actually what is rare. As for the quality of the Criterion release, it is actually quite poor. The best quality release so far is the Italian release on Cde / Eagle Pictures - http://www.lasercity.it/store/product_info.php?products_id=1691. It appears to be restored and color graded properly, and is also in the correct anamorphic format. However, it lacks English subtitles, and its cut status is unconfirmed. You can readily purchase the BFI edition of Saló from some sellers on Amazon UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005954M/qid=1147237830/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/203-0859586-8355903. The quality is not as good as the Eagle Pictures DVD, but it's better than the Criterion. It has burnt-in subtitles however. And it's known to be an uncut edition. You need a region free DVD player with PAL to NTSC conversion to watch it in North America... or you could use software such as AnyDVD and Nero Vision or Nero Recode or something similar to transcode a NTSC region free copy. It would actually be a nice project to get ahold of both editions and make English subtitles from the BFI version and add them to the Eagle Pictures version. (There used to be a page on the net (someplace) that compared the quality of all the different releases of Saló. Sadly, I've lost the link, and can't find it again.) There were some rumors floating around that Criterion will eventually be re-releasing Saló with the same or better quality as the Eagle Pictures edition, along with English subtitles. Maldoror fucked around with this message at 06:26 on May 10, 2006 |
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May 10, 2006 06:24
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http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1454877
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May 10, 2006 19:15
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Bump Here is the link I was looking for: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare/salo.htm I was actually incorrect about the best quality release being Italian... it's actually the French release on Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video I was thinking of. But as with the Italian disc, it lacks English subtitles. As you can see, the French release has the best quality... it actually looks like it was scanned on a high res film scanner and restored. The Criterion release looks the worst. Again however, the French disc has no English subtitles. I would like to get ahold of that French disc and create a .srt file based on the BFI disc (which I have) for adding English subtitles to the French disc. Unless someone knows of a site someplace that's already done this... Maldoror fucked around with this message at 14:27 on May 19, 2006 |
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May 19, 2006 14:22
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I may be replying to an old post, but Salo is one of my favorite "what" movies. I was introduced to this piece of cinematic history at a friends house one late saturday night. The Vhs copy we watched (about 5 people were at the house viewing the film), was shoddy and showing age, but the film was there. Given the "suspension of belief" that comes from viewing hundreds of Horror and Sci-fi movies, my inital impressions of this film were that of Shock. Utter,amazed shock. And then I laughed. The Film's main "Villains" were played to the point of absurdity.I was half expecting Snidely Whiplash to jump out of a closet and start raping someone, Given the Over-acting by the other Libertines. By the time you've experienced the stories of the whores, random rapings, random orgy rape, multiple deaths, the Film's 2 actual Jokes (Im not going to repeat them here, but in contrast to the film they were actually funny), and eventually the disturbing scene at the end with all libertines in drag and everyone being murdered,raped,and mutilated, you either turn off the film and cry in a corner for a while, or laugh about it excesses. But for all my humor attached to it, make no mistake. Salo is a dark movie. Its disturbing,raw and potentially gag inducing.The Circle of poo poo still gets me to this day. A Piece of cinema worthy of any collection, provided you have the stomach and possibly the humor to take it. 5/5
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Sep 8, 2007 23:42
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