Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

[Brett H.]

Click the link below to read my review of the once most highly sought after horror DVD in history, the sick, the twisted: Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom!

http://www.oh-the-horror.com/page.php?id=439

[Gringo Loco]

I've been wanting to see this and disgusted by it's content for some time. I think it's out on Blu-ray but it's region B only. Maybe if I pick up the new oppo Blu-ray player and pray for region free blu-rays.... lol

[The Dream Master]

Now that I finally watched this, I read the review, and I've gotta say you did the best possible considering the subject matter. :X

Seriously, this could have been called "120 Minutes of Some Old Whore Telling Crazy Stories While People Eat Shit." :X

In all seriousness, what a crazy flick. It's everything I imagined, only it got to be so unrelenting that I wasn't surprised anymore. Then I realized that's likely the precise effect Pasolini had in mind when directing it. Then again, the violence isn't nearly the most revolting thing in the movie, so I dunno.

[Brett H.]

The funniest part of the movie is the guy just not being able to control himself when the old whore was telling her story and just grabbed that other dude to bang away at him. Or perhaps it was the guy who went to down on the other guy who was raping this other guy.

Oh, yeah, Salo. :X

The best part is at the end where some violence comes into play, in my mind. I liked it enough, but the subject matter is just so beyond silly, it's amazing that Pasolini could get his point across so well in the first place. If you laughed at The Exorcist, you'll fucking pass out during Salo. :X

[The Dream Master]

The goofiest part in my mind was when that one fucker was going around showing his asshole to everyone before begging that guy to "do him" as he was raping that one chick.

Yep. :X

[Brett H.]

I think the goofiest part was when that one dude dropped a death turd on the floor.

[The Dream Master]

I wonder what Rob Zombie's Salo would be like. :X

[Brett H.]

It'd suddenly become an old dark house flick.

[The Dream Master]

"Guys dropping turds, making people eat shit, and raping everything on two legs gets boring after one movie." *scratches beard, looks off into distance*

[Brett H.]

dsijpfhuisyaoijohuf

Yeah, pretty hard to make Salo boring there, RZ. I don't care if it's the first or 100th time. The only real difference between the first and second time would be corpse fucking. Right up his alley...

That shit don't get boring after one movie, does it Robbie? :X

[ZPowers]

Isn't this based on a Marquis de Sade story? I mean, what can you really expect from a movie co-written by a person who wrote such crazy/disturbing slash fiction that he's still famous 200 years later AND sadomasochism was named after him.

It's almost a shame he lived so long ago, really. The things he could have done to with the internet. Not to mention the implications of rule of the internet 34. "The Smurfs" by the Marquis de Sade.

Seriously, though. Everything I've heard about this movie makes it seem like the only reason to watch it is so you can see seriously fucked up shit for a while, with no real rhyme or reason. At least when I saw "Grave of the Fireflies" I felt absolutely sick to emphasize a message.
ADDED:
Okay, I guess that your review (which I am now reading for the first time!) implies some degree of merit achieved via extreme depravity. In some ways, Visitor Q gave me a similar, but probably less intense, feeling.

[Brett H.]

It's not a very intense feeling in Salo so much as it's just there with actual artistic intent. With nearly every scene, Pasolini inserts something relating to the overall allegory. Whether it's the rich fucking (well, literally here) the poor, the crap the rich make for us to consume into our bodies from big corporations (the shit in the movie), etc.

One of the best/most impacting/most disgusting scenes of the film to me was a scene in which the old whore at the end talks of when she first became a prostitute at age 9 (and she's proud!). It's not the nicest thing to hear in the world; very uncomfortable to sit through, but she tells of how the man didn't want to see her vagina. She just assumed she could open up her legs and the men would come rolling in, but he was disgusted by it. An interesting metaphor for not only what many women assume a male wants primarily/how bad it is to be powered by such a simple motive, but also interesting in the fact that the man who turned it down is by far the polar opposite of the majority of men out there. They sell, we buy. The film has some strong stuff when people aren't taking dumps on the floor. It should also be said that in every scene in the movie, the rich are dressed up in fancy clothes while committing all these atrocities, which again is an easy metaphor to put into place. The sex is all devoid of pleasure, and it's funny you bring up the internet because if you watch XXX files online compared to way back in the day (what with porn's early, legit intentions), you'll see that very much of what Salo featured has certainly come true. The mass consumption of sex online sure as hell doesn't thrive on anything derivative of eroticism. :X

If you can catch it and are willing to see that Pasolini wasn't just making people eat shit for shits and giggles, you'll like it a lot more. Without the metaphors, it's just fucking absurd. The MST3K guys would have a field day.

[nottidelterrore]

The only real difference between the first and second time would be corpse fucking. Right up his alley...

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c332/albadeimorti/50bf7913.jpg

[The Dream Master]

Yeah, just to back up what Brett said, there's all kinds of stuff swimming beneath the surface of all the madness. To me, one of the main points of the film is revealed quite early when one of the leaders says "evil is contagious," which proves to be quite true by the end of the movie when people are turning on each other left and right. I mean, it's quite an obvious observation, but it has some real impact once it happens.

Placing it in its historical context also helps too, as it then becomes an allegory about Italy itself and a reminder of the atrocities committed by its fascist regime.

[Brett H.]

I suppose I should clarify when I said "not a very intense feeling" because it certainly could be. It pretty much knocks all the pins down. However, I like my artsy fartsy stuff as more contemplation that requires some deep thought or soul searching rather than stuff like this. I fully realize how fucked up shit was during WWII and I know for damn sure how everything feeds the rich and buries the poor. Just a personal preference I have that should be in no way held against the movie, especially if political undertones are your thing. It's cool and all, don't get me wrong, but it never actually showed me anything I couldn't figure out myself or posed any questions that I've never thought of before.

[The Dream Master]

Yeah, you sort of alluded to this in your review, but it's sort of the equivalent of Romero saying "people fight" when shit gets bad. :X