Review LXVII
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1976)
Oh, yes. Oh, yes... We'll be checking out Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò today. But first, an anecdote! I've known about this film for a little while. I thought the premise seemed interesting - and quite grotesque - but I never got around to watching it. Then my latest boyfriend brought it up in one of our conversations about peculiar films, but, again, it was put on hold given the content. The other day, I went to bring my friend something at his school and he brought up Marquis de Sade, saying he had tried to read his novel "The 120 Days of Sodom". We had an elaborated discussion about the man whose named derived the word "sadism", and so, when I met up with my boyfriend later that day, I told him it was time to watch this film. My god, were we in for a doozy.
The film takes place in the Italian Social Republic, also known as the Republic of Salò. Just to explain quickly, even though the film mentions it briefly, the Italian Social Republic was a puppet state for Nazi Germany from 1943 to 1945. It was a Fascist state led by the infamous Mussolini (though the state relied heavily on German troops to maintain control) and set up in Northern Italy. While the capital of this state was Rome, it centered around Salò. The film starts with four men - the Duke (Paolo Bonacelli), the Bishop (Giorgio Cataldi), the Magistrate (Umberto Paolo Quintavalle), and the President (Aldo Valletti) - sitting around a table agreeing and signing a book of rules/regulations they have appeared to have written. We then cut to these men stopping various men and women in the republic and proceeding to take them away in handcuffs. These men and women soon learn they will be part of an experimentation of sexual fetishes and social degradation, consisting of three circles - the Circle of Maniacs, the Circle of Shit, and the Circle of Blood.
I'd like to say I'm not a prude when it comes to fetishes, but, my god, this takes ones I find a bit more extreme already and goes all the way. I'll go ahead right now and say that if you're squeamish, don't watch this film. Even me, who has visited the deepest corners of the Internet and frequented movie viewings of the utmost gore, covered my eyes watching this one. I'll go into brief detail of each circle. Spoilers, to an extent, but really, unless you watch it, you aren't being spoiled of the viewing. The Circle of Maniacs consists of putting down people socially, emotionally, psychologically... Women and men are forced to pretend to be dogs as they grab food with their mouths and forced to eat nails. The Circle of Shit is pretty self-explanatory. Yep, we get to enjoy coprophagia/philia and urophilia scenes. And no, the kidnapped people in the film are not masochists - one scene consists of a woman eating feces as she cries over the death of her mother. It was beautiful. Finally, the Circle of Blood is also pretty self-explanatory. We start off with a black mass (a Satanic mass of sorts) with the "marriages" of all the four men who organised this to cockmongers who were chosen to help out in this perverse orgy of sorts. We then proceed to see the horrific torture of those individuals who broke the rules established by the leading libertines.
While this doesn't necessarily sound that bad (there is some pretty messed up stuff on the Internet), the reason you cringe is because these four artistocratic men get gratification from these crazy acts of sexual perversion. As some man's tongue gets cut off, you see a man rubbing his pants. A whole group of individuals is forced into eating a huge pile of feces for supper. Some man just trips a woman and proceeds to have anal sex with her. I mean, c'mon, again, I'm willing to be open to certain fetishes, but these are taken to such an extreme (except for coprophilia - that one I refuse to accept to any extent) that you're baffled anyone could find this sexually arousing. But I suppose that is one point of the film (and perhaps the book) - losing control on your animalistic nature can be a very, very scary thing. Sex, of course, being this animalistic instict that humans can't seem to control sometimes (Freudian logic, guys?). Another view is, of course, political corruption and abuse of power. We have these men of higher class and power destroying the lives of the middle-class youngsters. The regulations are chosen by only those four men. The film can also represent the degradation and the fall of Fascist Italy. There were also many random interludes of monologues from the Duke and the others, but I had trouble following them given the extreme imagery I was being subjected to. Maybe I'll look into what they said, but, for now, I'm happy with my little comprehension of the movie.
It's hard to rate this one given the content. It wasn't a bad film, but jeez, a shocker. It really went far with its themes, but it... did it well? If you're looking for something really off-the-wall and extreme, check this one out, but again, if you get offended, don't say I didn't warn you. I'm definitely going to check out the book despite the warnings I've gotten from everyone. Happy viewing, guys!
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