Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18729 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-04-02
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: French, German, Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom (known in Italian as Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) provoked howls of outrage and execration on its original release in 1975, and the controversy rages to this day. Until the British Board of Film Classification finally ventured a certificate in 2000, the movie could only be shown at private cinema clubs, and even then in severely mutilated form. The relaxation of the censors' shears allows you to see for yourself what the fuss was about, but be warned--Salò will test the very limits of your endurance. Updating the Marquis de Sade's phantasmagorical novel of the same title from 18th-century France to fascist Italy at the end of World War II, writer-director Pasolini relates a bloodthirsty fable about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Four upper-class libertines gather in an elegant palazzo to inflict the extremes of sexual perversion and cruelty upon a hand-picked collection of young men and women. Meanwhile, three ageing courtesans enflame the proceedings further by spinning tales of monstrous depravity. The most upsetting aspect of the film is the way Pasolini's coldly voyeuristic camera dehumanises the victims into lumps of random flesh. Though you may feel revulsion at the grisly details, you aren't expected to care much about what happens to either master or slave. In one notorious episode, the subjugated youths are forced to eat their own excrement--a scene almost impossible to watch, even if you know the meal was actually composed of chocolate and orange marmalade. (Pasolini mischievously claimed to be satirising our modern culture of junk food.) Salò is the ultimate vision of apocalypse--and as if in confirmation, the director was himself brutally murdered just before its premiere. You can reject the movie as the work of an evil-minded pornographer, but you won't easily forget it. --Peter Matthews

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
DVD 5
Italian
Region 2
Film Notes
Directors Biography
English

Synopsis
Pasolini's adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's 18th-century novel transfers the action to WWII Italy, where Fascist rulers brutalize and torture a group of adolescent girls and boys. Soundly condemned at the time of its release by Italian censors, SALO proffers an unflinching look at the horrors committed by totalitarian regimes and their dehumanizing abuse of power.

Customer Reviews

really bad film
this is a very gory and nasty film. i suspect it only made it past censors because it could be considered a work of art (although by whom i'm not sure). this film can be summed up in three words "facists are bad". it really never tells you exactly what their problem is or why they are torturing people other than they are bad people. that's about as deep as this film goes with it's characters.

don't get me wrong, i love horror and gore films but this particular one tries to be something a little more high brow and fails miserably. it's also overlong (i had to watch it in 2 sittings because it was draining the life out of me). there is nothing clever here, there is nothing entertaining here and while the film is extremely long there aren't that many scenes of gore.

i'm not sure exactly who i would recommend this film to other than people who enjoy seeing teenagers getting degraded by old men.

Uncomfortable but Still Worth Watching
This is a version of the Marquis de Sade's story, The 120 Days of Sodom, a story about four powerful men who enslave two dozen teenagers and torture them repeatedly. Unlike the book the film is set in the Salò Republic, the Nazi puppet state in northern Italy, in the year 1944. Pier Paolo Pasolini directs his final film. The four powerful men in the story are referred to as the Duke, the Magistrate, the President and the Bishop. To kick things off they marry each other's daughters and then begin to have young males and females kidnapped (18 in all, 9 of each gender). They also have four older prostitutes join in and this whole multitude marches over to some palace. Mind you, the time period means that the Nazi occupied Salò Republic is on its last legs and on the cusp of being crippled by the Allied forces. So the setting gives us sort of an end of days feeling right from the get-go. The content and commentary certainly continue with that subject matter throughout.

The film is set up in four stages, the first being the ante-inferno, which refers to those who are not quite condemned to hell but also not allowed into heaven either. The film's setting is meant to feel like a brief moment in purgatory with its isolated party of characters doing unspeakable things before judgment, and then it all must end. The second stage is the circle of manias, or obsession, where we see the sexual humiliation of the film manifest itself further. The third stage is the circle of excrement, which is where we see the characters consume feces. Pasolini has used this as a metaphor broadly for the perverse level of consumption depicted in the film overall, and directly as a commentary on mass-produced foods and consumerism. The fourth stage is the circle of blood, this is where those who do not partake in this bizarre corruption are brutally murdered in various ways. The stages bring us further and further downward into degeneracy, which Pasolini has applied strongly as a denunciation against capitalism and fascism.

If you found any interest in the above commentary, then I assume Salò may be just the film for you, but I assure you that the film is definitely not for everyone. It is up front with its content. It's controversial for many different reasons, but primarily it is the visual content that turns people away. Yes, it's not as violent as Saw and the nudity is not quite as pretty as it is in some movies, but Salò is anything other than an exploitation film. One may even argue that it is the exact opposite of exploitation. Perhaps it is Salò's censure of exploitation that makes it truly disturbing as a modern social commentary.

It does just what it says on tin, disturbs the trousers off've you!
Pasolini's last film "Salo..." is extremly unsettling it has a way of staying with you ages after you watch it and the ability to linger in your mind leaving you with no choice but think about the horrific scenes constantly which include rape, excrement eating and drinking urine among many more.

I have only ever been able to watch this film once due to it's content and even the first time I found it hard. Although it is very disturbing it is actually a very good film which paints a very accurate portrait of fascism and in a way it is morbidly interesting to see what horrors these people went through. The way the director shows how having power affects people is also very good which he does through the fascist libertines.

Do not buy this though if you're expecting an exploitive horror movie filled you gore, it's nothing like that it has a very serious tone and will probably put you off you're gore-fests.