Salo (1975, It.) (aka The 120 Days of Sodom)

D. Pier Paolo Pasolini



Salò was directed by the notorious Italian poet, novelist, painter and film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered before it was released. It was based on a work by the notorious Marquis de Sade - to depict the short-lived, lakeside republic of Salo in N. Italy at the close of WWII, where four fascist officials in a secluded chateau totally controlled, abused, enslaved and victimized an anonymous group of young and attractive peasant teenagers (both male and female) and subjected them to sexual and physical tortures, psychological humiliation and violence over a period of a few days. This extreme exercise of power was supposed to symbolize the evil of fascism itself. In one scene, the youths were stripped, collared, leashed, and forced to act like dogs.

The nihilistic film was filled with debaucheries and cruel sexual perversions (ie., a mock wedding ceremony in which the couple was denied consummation and then anally raped). Other outrages included strangulation, scalping, tongue-extraction, eye-gouging and nipple-burning, including the forced eating of human excrement. It aroused outrage and disgust when it was released. It was prosecuted by various film certification boards and banned outright in numerous countries.