“SALO, or the 120 days of Sodom” (1975)- anyone else find this Italian horror film disturbing beyond belief?

The trailer

ONLY 120 days?

This was on a Criterion DVD about 20 years ago.

R2 the film is disturbing and not a fucking joke.

“ In World War II Italy, four fascist libertines round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of torture.”

It’s about 4 men in power who kidnap 9 teenage boys and 9 teenage girls and subject them to all manner of torture, perversion and degradation.

R3 it came out on Criterion in the states in the late 90s and then was pulled. Years later it was rereleased on criterion again.

Any homosex in it?

Reddit post questioning how this film is still distributed knowing some of the teens were really minors.

It's disturbing but also strangely boring in many parts.

No, you couldn't make a film like this in America. Probably couldn't make it in Europe now.

Just as disturbing but far less known is SWEET MOVIE, made around the same time with a lot of the same disturbing issues — and it's partly a comedy. It also got a Criterion release.

Is it a musical?

Can we stop saying “Europe”??? Say “Italy” r7. Americans have a habit of thinking all of Europe is the same. Europe is a continent with tons of countries on it.

This was filmed and released in Italy but banned in many parts of Europe, including London.

How much footage was cut from this?

Also known as The Bryan Singer Story

London is not a country.

I was well aware of its reputation when I first watched (when Criterion rereleased it on blu-ray), but I wasn't prepared for how unsettling an experience watching it would be. It's not so much the acts of depravity that unnerve but the formal aesthetic rigor with which those scenes are filmed that makes the film hard to shake.

“Can we stop saying “Europe”??? Say “Italy”. Americans have a habit of thinking all of Europe is the same. Europe is a continent with tons of countries on it.”

I’ll stop when you stop, Brussels

I've always steered clear of it.

There’s a thread on Salo every year, maybe less. I havnt watched. I read the Wiki plot outline and that was enough.

Americans on Twitter love sharing this image and joking that this film is their comfort film etc.

They also love sharing that one image or the clip of the camera slowly making its way down to their penis exposed but cut the clip before the penis is shown because the two actors were minors when they filmed this.

So that also makes one wonder if sharing the images from this film with the teens could get you in trouble and count as CP

R14 European Union doesn’t change that each country has their own laws, especially in 1975.

[quote] It's not so much the acts of depravity that unnerve but the formal aesthetic rigor with which those scenes are filmed

Explain the formal aesthetic rigor please.

It’s a technically gorgeous film—very artistic and atmospheric. It’s obviously horrifying and it only gets worse as it progresses, but overall I think it’s a disturbing masterpiece.

[quote]r16 = I read the Wiki plot outline and that was enough.

I felt the same about the Wiki outline of The Coffee Table.

[quote] Can we stop saying “Europe”??? Say “Italy”. Americans have a habit of thinking all of Europe is the same.

To me it’s only one big dating field.

Like US states, r18.

The director was murdered before the film was released. He was planning on making this a horror trilogy but that never came to be.

“ The British Board of Film Classification rejected the film in 1975, making it technically illegal to show in the UK. When an arthouse cinema in London showed it, the film was confiscated in a police raid. In 2000, the BBFC revised its opinion and gave it an "18" certificate, for adults only.”

[quote] I felt the same about the Wiki outline of The Coffee Table.

Is that a documentary?

I saw it projected in a seedy movie theatre on Market Street in San Francisco on a double feature with early 1980s gay porn (on film). I dont remember what gay movie was shown.

I keep waiting for Disney to release the musical version.

[quote]Any homosex in it?

Are you kidding?

It is Pasolini.

It's no "Caligula."

“ When the movie premiered in West Germany in February 1976 it was confiscated by the state attorney in order to ban it. The district court of Stuttgart classified it as pornographic and violence-praising. A few days later, though, that ruling was reversed and the film was allowed to be distributed nationwide. Various legal proceedings continued but in the end the Federal Court of Justice dismissed those.”

R30 no, because that was not 15 year olds being tortured and raped and killed for fun….

Enough dude. Seriously…

Yes, Romeo and Juliet is constitutionally protected. Romeo's ass

“ In 1994, an undercover police officer in Cincinnati, Ohio, rented the film from a local gay bookstore, then later arrested the owners for "pandering". A large group of scholars and artists, including Martin Scorsese and Alec Baldwin, signed a legal brief arguing the film's artistic merit. The court dismissed the case because the police violated the owners' Fourth Amendment rights, without addressing the question of whether the film was obscene.”

R33 his ass isn’t his penis. And the actor was over 18

It's in *every* one of those Youtube "Banned Films of the 70s" compilations.

“ An attempt by Sky TV to televise the full uncut version in 1991 was vetoed by the BBFC. It thus became the only film to be rejected for TV screening amongst the works submitted by Sky.”

R36 cool. Most of us have lives and don’t sit around watching every banned films of the 70s compilation.

Wonderful you have all that time on your hands though.

“ The film had an extremely limited release worldwide, and was banned in many countries. It got a wide release in Sweden in 1976, and sold 125,000 tickets, meaning 1.5% of all Swedes saw the movie. It also grossed more than The Omen.”

It was banned in Australia until 2010

R35, no, Leonard was 17 during filming.

“ In 1975 the UK Sales distributor Curtis Elliott asked the BBFC for advice on cutting the film to obtain an X certificate . A supporter of the film was Head censor James Ferman ,he advised "that this remarkable film should be uncut" (& shown on a Club Basis- therefore not requiring a certificate). After it's first showing at the Old Compton Cinema Club the film was confiscated by police.”

There is a big difference between Leonard showing his butt cheeks briefly and what goes on in this film… if you think showing 15, 16, 17 year olds penises and vaginas is the same as a butt shot idk what to tell you

“ The New York Film Festival attempted to arrange the first American screening of the film in 1976; United Artists, the film's worldwide distributor, refused. Dealing directly with producer Alberto Grimaldi, the Festival was able to screen the film the following year via an arrangement with Zebra Films, a one-off distributor whose sole credit is this film's U.S. release.”

Our favorite movie!

Could probably easily find a torrent. But I’m not that curious. It sounds pretty awful.

I’ll skip the pedo porn

R46 you could.

A true masterpiece in cinema!

“ Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered before the film's release. A 17 year-old hustler, Giuseppe "Pino" Pelosi, was arrested when he was found with Pasolini's car. He admitted running over Pasolini several times with the car after an argument, and end up convicted of the crime. Many years later, he denied participating in it, claiming that three mysterious men were involved. The case remains unsolved.”

This film is being sold by Criterion to Americans right now on their website. If there were legal concerns, they wouldn't be doing that. It's a disgusting film, but not illegal.

It was never banned in the USA r51 but that doesn’t change the fact many of the kids in the film are KIDS.

It was banned all over Europe minus a few countries, banned in Australia, banned in Canada, but not the USA.

My stars, r38, aren't you just the Susie Sourpuss.

Most people who have studied the case think that it was impossible for Pelosi to have murdered Pasolini by himself, and think a far-right fgroup was involved. But did they do it to punish Pasolini for this film in particular? As yet, no one knows.

[quote] that doesn’t change the fact many of the kids in the film are KIDS.

1-877-Kars4KIDS

2011 Criterion article about how controversial the film was with both movie watchers and critics, not always for the same reasons.

[quote]Explain the formal aesthetic rigor please.

I can try; it almost has a more German than Italian feel — cold, clinical, never tipping off the viewer how he or she should feel about some of the acts on screen. The soundtrack is classical, played in a very stentorian manner.

As of 2020 people were trying to have the film removed from Libraries in Toronto. Their requests keep getting denied by Toronto.

An article about the film released on February 28, 2025

Thank you, R57.

It's a favorite film of several academics and intellectuals I've known who fancy themselves edgelords.

And when I saw this movie, I was way too curious about kink and also about perverse events in history to find it "disgusting". I was fascinated. It's disturbing because it's about disturbing times and events.

An article from last month

What’s “edgelord”, precious? What’s “edgelord”?

It was banned in Australia from 1976 to 1993 then banned again from 1998 to 2010.

Keep in mind, r62, that the events in it did not actually happen. Pasolini and his collaborator set the events of the Marquis de Sade's novel "120 Days of Sodom" in the final years of the fascist republic of Salo at the end of WW2. But it's fictional.

Of course this is fictional, and a morph, but lurid tortures including sexual tortures happened at many moments in history.

Not just sexual torture but sexual torture of minors. Which most wouldn’t find AS controversial if all the actors playing the teens were 18+ but numerous ones were minors doing full nudity etc.

There's something a bit protest too much about the way OP keeps banging on about the actors being underage

It's strange that it's not more popular in the US. Seems like something the Republicans would like to watch, anticipating emulating all that stuff in the near future.

R70 you don’t find 15 year olds being completely nude strange? Should we have your phone and computer looked at?

A lot of unnecessary nudity from the teens.

I believe Lucie Arnaz was the original choice for the main teen girl in the film but shooting interviewed with production of "Who is the Black Dahlia?" and so she was advised by certain parties to drop from Pasolini's film.

R74 she speaks fluent Italian?

Actually I advised Lucie to take the role but Lucy threw a conniption fit.

When I was a kid we watched it every Christmas.

Again, does she speak fluent Italian? This was an Italian film written and directed by an Italian man starring Italians. 100% spoken in Italian.

No, it’s fun for the entire family, OP.

R77, it was de rigeur viewing in our home every Christmas along with Mame!

Bless your heart, r78.

Female ejaculation is banned on film in the UK. They ban everything there.

Princess Diana used to complain that when she was a child the Queen made her and the other local children watch it every Christmas at Sandringham.

R73 = frau who needs to get the fuck off of a gay web site.

It was banned in over 150 countries

R84 saying the nudity from MINORS was unnecessary makes someone a frau? You seem to fall right into the awful gay stereotype many straights have. They feel gays are pedos. A gay speaking against nudity of minors on film is FRAU to you.

R52 screams “grooming” every two seconds of every day like a good hausfrau.

R57, Hitler was inspired by Fascism.

Pasolini was an interesting guy. I tried to watch one of his films, but I didn't get it.

Try "Arabian Nights," R80, it is much less heavy than Salo, and is beautiful in every way—great plots, incredible scenery, beautiful actors, no torture

Which movies were more controversial than this?

You can find it on some freebie porn sites.

I've seen in twice, the first time being the original release in a London movie theater. It's a social-commentary comedy that's heavy-handed and drags. All the effort is in the matter-of-factness of all the contrived horrifics, depicted with a detached eye. The treatment of evil as an elaborate attempt to occupy oneself with stagings that ultimately are boring is the opposite of anything erotic or even convincingly transgressive.

[quote]Most of us have lives and don’t sit around watching every banned films of the 70s compilation.

This mean-tweener-girl post above and other "What about the children?!?!" posters here are just the usual squawk boxes forgetting IT'S A MOVIE. SHOW THE HARM OR SHUT UP and quit getting off on a spurious morality. AI-fed witlessness.

And what the fuck is R67 squawking about? No one is saying that the frequent abuse of children is not real. That is irrelevant to the question of this film's value and culpability in harm. Where's the proof of harm?

I'll wager that Björn Andrésen suffered more from Visconti's and team's attentions filming and promoting "Death in Venice" than did young group-actors (an important feature of "Salo" in production, which was conducted professionally with no evidence of improprieties that I've been able to locate.

[quote]Which movies were more controversial than this?

Don't know if "more," but on an equal level of controversy: "Pink Flamingos," "Sweet Movie," some of the Italian cannibal movies made in South America that had actual animal killings and mutilation (I will not watch these), "A Serbian Film," "The Last House on the Left," "The Onania Club" (still unreleased after almost a decade).

R93 again, child porn is not a joke. Enough is enough.

I tried about 20 years ago to watch it, but I had to turn it off.

How many different versions of this movie are there?

So r73 - who is also OP - is so disgusted that the actors were underage that they decided to make a recording of the naked actors and post it here? Sounds like I was right, and sounds like it's your hard drive which needs checking, r72, as you're the one sharing CP

Can everyone get a grip? Jesus.

The film is gross all around

A video about how this movie led to the director being murdered.

It was a brutal murder, with his head and body being bludgeoned, ran over by a car repeatedly and then set on fire.

Shaló: 120 Daysh of Shodom

There could be so many reasons the director was murdered but it’s believed now that it was neo-fascists who murdered him. But there were rumors of the mafia and rumors of conservatives too.

He also had a problem with minors. He was once charged with sexual misconduct with 3 teenage boys and he didn’t deny the claims but instead compared himself to a self described pederast. He later met “the great love of his life” at 41 year old, the other guy was 15!

I’ve read the synopsis and seen clips and stills of the movie but haven’t watched it fully. Pasolini has a scat fetish that’s pretty disgusting. In any case, it does a good job showcasing fascists and their flair for nihilism, depravity, and sadism. I’m sure Theil, Musk, etc. would love to be like those four libertines if they could get away with it.

[quote] It's strange that it's not more popular in the US. Seems like something the Republicans would like to watch, anticipating emulating all that stuff in the near future.

It’s a critique of fascists and their mindsets, mores, amorality and hypocrisy rather than something for them to emulate. Of course the less self aware among them may not be aware of that or the irony.

[quote] again, child porn is not a joke. Enough is enough.

Fuck off, frau cunt.

It’s a film that tries way too hard to be arty. It’s ott, and too on the nose.

[quote] rember: Identity theft is not a joke!

The noble otter.

[quote]r7 It's disturbing but also strangely boring in many parts.

I thought so, too! God, it feels like it's three or four hours long! I saw it in a NYC art house cinema in the late 80s, and there were people who walked out. But I wonder if some of them left because the movie starts to feel drearily endless.

There's one scene I found genuinely scary.... where the captives have to pretend to be dogs and the men throw hunks of bread to them to eat. And then - -

Uggh.

[quote]Female ejaculation is banned on film in the UK. They ban everything there.

Why does the UK ban Female ejaculation? Is the UK against female sexuality? What is the rationale behind that?

Of the two guys in R17's post (whose dicks are shown in the film), the one on the left would've been 17 when the film was shot, and the other on the right would've been around 19. I think the general rule is that minors can be shown nude in films as long as the scene is incontrovertibly not sexual, but that can get into a messy grey area. Brooke Shields's nudity in "Pretty Baby" is a very famous example of this, especially because she was barely an adolescent when that was made (AND she's playing a child prostitute in it).

In the specific scene R17 is referring to, one could argue that Pasolini simply wanted to show cocks, which I frankly think is the most likely case. The man was an ephebophile. It is a bizarre moment when the camera pans down, but in a film as gruesome and depraved as this, it doesn't necessarily come to the forefront of the mind when you are thinking about what counts as "shocking".

R111, yeah, from what I can discern of reading the laws on nudity in film, it appears that as long as nudity under age 18 isn't hardcore in nature and has been signed off on legally by a parent or legal guardian, it is allowed.

I've never seen this film, so I don't know what the specifics involving the actors were. The nudity of Leonard Whiting in 1968 in 'Romeo & Juliet' was also apparently legal at the time, though of course in recent years Whiting has said Franco Zeffirelli pressured him & Olivia Hussey into agreeing to do it. So obviously this subject is complicated.

The film accomplishes the shocking aspects it sets out to convey but as a whole it’s not good. It would have worked better as short films tied together in an anthology.

Years ago I picked up 'Salò' dvd at my local artsy dvd rental place, took it to the checkout counter.

The clerk looked at me and asked iif I knew what I was getting into? I shrugged and said yeah (in actuality I didn't), why, I asked? He curled his lips and said, take it from me, you don’t want to rent this, it is very disturbing. That, of course, only piqued my interest more. I remarked, well, now I definitely have to rent it, and chuckled.

Back at home, settled in for a night of some Italian Auteur Cinema. Fuck, I REALLY should have listened to that video clerk. Fucking gross AND boring.

It sounds about as inviting as a cholera epidemic.

I wouldn’t stream this film in Trump’s America. Too dangerous. Leaving this thread now.

There is mass nudity throughout Salo from both sexes, but the attention to the male body in the film is impossible to ignore IMO. With any of the actors being minors, the problem it poses comes down to intent and the director's motivation for the nudity in the film, which could either be there to genuinely serve some narrative/artistic purpose, or simply as an excuse for the director to passively get his jollies by documenting nubile bodies. Given what is known about Pasolini, I tend to think the truth is somewhere in the middle. For a graphic film about the sexual exploitation and mutilation of teenagers by fascist perverts, I suppose there's no way around at least some nudity, but the proper thing would have been to cast actors who were 18 or older.

You also have to take into account that the film is a product of a certain time and place. I think Italians and Europeans in general would be more lax about teenage actors appearing naked onscreen as they overall have less concerns about nudity in general. I think Pasolini's choices are at the very least suspicious in moments, but in the end it is a work of art and there is no proof the actors were explicitly harmed by any of this. One could argue it is tasteless and exploitative (which is sort of true of the film as a whole), but equating it to pornography is kind of ridiculous.

There’s a scene where the ferret-faced actor - maybe the priest - is bent over getting railed by one of the young guys. When the kid pulls out, there’s a flash of his impressively huge, thick salami. Blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s the only explicit hardcore moment in the whole film. The rest is shock-art cinema, self-serious, joyless, and so desperate to offend it ends up dull.

I personally wish that it would have been even more crude.

The heaping pile of shit in the silver carving cart wasn’t crude enough for you, R118? Wow.

Is Te

'A mysterious young man (Terence Stamp) seduces every member of a bourgeois family — mom, dad, son, and daughter. But when he suddenly disappears, everything they knew about their lives is thrown into question.'

*Is Teorema worth seeing?

R106 didn’t watch it because it doesn’t TRY to be artsy. All of the directors films were strange and his writings were too. He was an artistic person.

R109 no, you didn’t.

R117 you people keep saying EUROPE when the film was banned all over Europe at the time. So no, Europe was not open to the nudity of minors and the imagery despite how much you all keep saying EUROPE while ignoring how many countries in the continent of Europe banned it.

R111 r112 is the same poster, and I hope you know what you said is 100% untrue. I also hope you know all your hardcore defending of child nudity is being documented.

I’m a huge cinema nut and have seen most things. I love Pasolini’s other films (and his life story is fascinating).

This film is very interesting, but is overrated for a variety of reasons.

This entire thread reads like a bunch of hysterical teenagers beside themselves over a dirty magazine they found out in the woods.

This film ain’t ALL THAT.

I've been curious to see it, but not enough to search it out on some sketchy website.

r110 Yes, basically.

It's no longer banned, that was undone in 2019. Before that female ejaculation was banned because it was considered the same as piss play (given that a large part of female ejaculate is urine). At the time, acts which could 'cause harm' were banned in porn (this included ridiculous stuff like facesitting), and piss play was counted as part of that on the basis that if piss got into a cut it could cause an infection. Obviously it's utterly ridiculous, and was widely seen as just being an excuse to be anti-woman.

Oh, and in case you're thinking this was just some weird Victorian law that was still on the books - nope, that list was enacted in 2014. Five years later it was changed so no specific acts were banned, instead things just had to be consensual, between adults, not cause serious harm, etc.

I saw it many years ago, and it was of course horrifying. I fast forwarded a lot. Despite the nudity and sex, it is far from a titillating film. I wish i had seen it when i was older so that i could maybe better appreciate it the artistic side, but I definitely can’t go over that experience again.

The 70s were indeed a different time. In 1900, there is a scene near the end where Robert de Niro and Gerard Depardieu have a threesome with a prostitute who jacks them off and we see her doing it and their cocks. Also can’t imagine this scene shot today.

From the New York Times review:

.For all of Mr. Pasolini's desire to make "Salo" an abstract statement, one cannot look at images of people being scalped, whipped, gouged, slashed, covered with excrement and sometimes eating it and react abstractedly unless one shares the director's obsessions.Far from being the "agonized scream of total despair" the New York Film Festival calls the film, it is a demonstration of nearly absolute impotency, if there is such a thing. Ideas get lost in a spectacle of such immediate reality and cruelty."Salo" will be shown at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center today at 1 P.M. and repeated there tomorrow evening at 6. It opens its regular commercial engagement Monday at the Festival

Oct. 1, 1977

What are you all you queens banging on about, especially YOU, R126? Are you also trying to get the Marquis de Sade's books banned? Fuck off!

Miss R126 will have you know you're being documented!

No one is talking about books. We are speaking about real minors being exploited. And you think it’s cute, even straight up defending child porn. And don’t deny it, it’s been saved along with all your bullshit on Twitter, LPSG, Reddit, TikTok

And the ridiculous amounts of accounts you have.

Thread closed

OP "The film is soooooooo dark and heartbreaking"

Because Mussolini was such a hoot.

R135 triggered

There was a website I found about a decade ago that listed the cast, and what they went on to do after, and some of their experiences on the set. Though I think it must have been long deleted since I can't find it now. Did find this interview in Italian from the guy that played the turncoat victim from the other year though. The ""shit"" apparently tasted quite nice, and they played football against the cast of 1900 (who cheated).

R138 triggered that a gay man is saying there is nothing wrong with Child porn? The fact you are defending it will lead to your demise.

I seem to remember long shots from inside looking outside and some guards are walking around with their giant prosthetic dongs out. At least I assumed they are latex. Enormous.

[quote] This entire thread reads like a bunch of hysterical teenagers beside themselves over a dirty magazine they found out in the woods.

[quote]This film ain’t ALL THAT.

We're all [bold]so[/bold] impressed by how jaded you are.

R126 the fact that you read my post as a defense of child exploitation just demonstrates how utterly fucking stupid you are. Also, I am not R112. Were you raised in a Pentecostal church tent? The hysteria is a bit much.

What is the crudest movie ever?

Barbie

R135 is an unhinged queen.

R135 so Benito touched you "down there" . Time to move on pa-paw

"it's believed now that it was neo-fascists who murdered him. But there were rumors of the mafia and rumors of conservatives too."

Neo-fascists, mafia and conservatives, too? I prefer just to blame things on "foreign factions" and be done with it.

Let's be very clear about what this film depicts.

An old man laughs at a teenaged girl for crying over the recent death of her mother. The old man takes a shit on the floor and forces her to graphically eat it as she cries.

The old people make the teens shit in bed pans over time. They collect the shit and have a big feast of it. Forcing the teens to serve it on big silver platters, the consume it with gusto. As the teens serve them, they are sexually molested in various ways.

Decadent stuff.

R149 we all know the film is decadent. See r4

You forgot forcefeeding the girl food with nails in it.

R118 wrote: The rest is shock-art cinema, self-serious, joyless, and so desperate to offend it ends up dull.

I've never seen it but that sounds like an extremely accurate take.

The fascism bent feels like a disguise purposefully put in so he can film truly gross stuff that he gets off on.

[quote]Neo-fascists, mafia and conservatives, too?

I'm sorry Mrs. Patsy Ramsey, formerly of Boulder, CO, but I'm going with lions, tigers and bears.

R149 since you can describe it in such detail how many times did you wank to it gramps?

R149 lets be clear there is nothing more tiresome then a moralizing git condemning a film he's obviously secretly enjoyed many times.

Hypocrtical stuff.

R152 is the kind of fool who weighs in with a critique of something they admittedly never saw. It so happens that making them fascist libertines in WW2 Italy was a genuinely great idea. And I have seen the movie. I've also read Sade's book (something probably nobody else on this thread has done) and it's far more violent than even the movie.

It’s a bizarre film but fascinating. And it isn’t boring at all.

It’s disgusting in many ways too but the message is clear.

Pasolini wrote about and denounced the corruption of uncontrolled industrial society; the terrible danger of making education a joke, creating a sheep population. The horror of corruption amongst every layer of society. All the disasters in industrial life he foresaw, came to be.

Eh bien, elle se croit sortie de la cuisse de Jupiter R156! Non seulement j’ai lu le sordide ouvrage de Sade, mais Madame Desgranges est mon héroïne.

La plume de ma tante.

Was there a lot of sex behind the cameras during this production?

No r161. This wasn’t a porn. Grow the fuck up already. You’re not a kid anymore.

R159 r160 any of us can use Google Translate. A real Italian would notice your grammatical errors.

R154 more horrifying than SALO.

[quote]R159 r160 any of us can use Google Translate. A real Italian would notice your grammatical errors.

Bless your heart, r162.

Perhaps she means Carla Bruni.

Interesting doc.

R166 see r100

You replied to it upthread….

He was a strange guy, but genuinely brilliant. He wrote many poems in a dialect of Italian, Friulan, which he didn't even speak--he just learned it so as to keep the dialect alive. He was very handsome when he was young (albeit somewhat short), and Maria Callas was madly in love with him and genuinely tried to convert him to heterosexuality and marriage. (Of course she had no luck.)

He liked teenage boys under the legal age of consent, and that got him into trouble during his life. He had to move out of his hometown in his 20s because of scandal.

R167 I didn't reply to it upthread

What's the best home video version of this movie?

The Brown Wedding was pretty bad

R171, I can't find any info on that

The whole movie is uncomfortable but interesting.

I found it all fucked up, including how the teens would be starved and then leashed up like dogs and had to act like dogs to get some food.

What is the most up to date version?

R172 they are speaking about this scene, after one of the teens is forced to be the bride of one of the men.

Am I the only one on here who had never heard of this film until this thread?

R176 I'm just curious- how old are you?

R176 many haven’t. They’re all putting on a performance.

This isn’t a household type film that everyone or most people would know. It’s a small INTERNATIONAL film. Most people don’t know modern international films yet alone 50 year old international films.

[quote]R176 Am I the only one on here who had never heard of this film until this thread?

Even in its initial release this was an art house film that most people wouldn’t have heard of. Most people who know of it now are film students.

It's an arthouse film, but it's a pretty notorious one.

It's also been written about pretty frequently by gay academics: the gay Berkeley theorist Leo Bersani practically specialized in analyzing this film.

Yes, and that still wouldn’t translate to mainstream media. It’s an Italian art house film. It played at like 2 theaters in the USA

Because, of course, who hasn't read the latest from Bersani?

People above a certain age do know about it, not necessarily movie buffs , even if it wasn’t actually seen by many. There weren’t that many famous shocking movies and Pasolini was an important cultural figure at the time. Culture now is much more fragmented (and I suspect people are more ignorant now as well).

r183 fancies herself an intellectual because she's heard of a film

[quote] Because, of course, who hasn't read the latest from Bersani?

He's dead, so he's not producing much lately.

I've seen many "shock" movies, but I've honestly never seen anything close to SALO. A Serbian Film doesn't even compare. The forced consumption of shit- and the... uh... consensual consumption of it in a banquet setting is just so out there.

If there's another movie as depraved, I haven't seen it, nor could I begin to imagine it.

I saw it in the theater a few months back. I actually knew very little going into it and, after maybe an hour, I decided I didn't need any more of whatever the fuck that was.

It's based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

[quote] It's based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

And all this time I thought it was based on the writings of Beverly Cleary!

This was on TV so many times after I came back from school as a kid. And this was our national broadcaster, mind you. I was just sitting there in front of the TV, trying to have a quick nap before my parents came home, being slowly traumatised by it and not really understanding what was happening. We got an American-style rating system a couple of years later and this obviously never happened again.

It a reel sicko forring movie.

-- Captain Obvious at R188.

Was it supposed to be a metaphor for facism or something? Or just torture snuff?

r192 YES! It was absolutely meant to be read that way. And not just the Italian fascism of the 20th century, Pasolini also wanted to comment on "new fascisms" like consumerism and neo-capitalism (likely also commodity fetishism). That aspect of it is probably more interesting and relevant today.

The director's last film. He was murdered shortly after.

When they started eating shit I had to turn it off.

It was just chocolate mixed with jam. Helps with the stomach knowing that when you're watching it.

This movie has everything!

R101 -Lizsha , are you looshing your mind?

Pasolini was a fervent communist so his political criticisms were rich. Millions tortured and killed in communist regimes. His own brother was killed by the communists and he blew it off! This film is just masturbatory hallucinations into underage sex and humiliation. Because he supported all of this when done by 'his' people. Anybody else doing it was not ok.

R194 has to be trolling at this point. I refuse to believe he’s this fucking stupid

I just watched this last night

Thank you for sharing, r201.

I have a friend who can watch anything and does but he told me he had to turn this off. I don't know how much he got through. I do watch the movie podcasts about this film on youtube and without exception everyone says it's absolutely revolting. Interestingly there are a number a female movie podcasters and I don't believe I've come across one who has reviewed this. They've all been young men. I need to double check this. Mama Roma is a beautiful film.

I cannot believe all the pearl-clutchers on this thread.

R204 I’m definitely not defending the film, but it’s almost as if some posters in this thread want us to apologize for a film that we weren’t responsible for the making of even if it was made before we were born.

No one needs to defend this film against gay Karens.

For me, the cruder the better!

R204 I think it's great. I earlier pointed out that I'd never seen a movie as depraved, and I stand by that. But that doesn't mean I don't like it or disapprove.

[quote]r205 It’s almost as if some posters in this thread want us to apologize for a film that we weren’t responsible for the making of, even if it was made before we were born.

Yet we saw it. And [italic]said nothing.

When you've got a gay man showing to the world his most depraved fantasies exploiting and abusing minors that is in no way pearl clutching. He in fact was doing it in his real life as well. What kind of mind do you have?

R190 where do you live? Because this certainly was not broadcast on regular tv in the states. Ever.

I doubt this has ever been broadcast in the states period. On any carrier. Not even for hotel room porn.

I was wondering that, too.

Like, i don’t think it was chosen for Dialing for Dollars…

R212 it was showed in gay porn theatre cruising room

Really, a movie about post WW2 depravity and cruelty is disturbing?

It was designed to be disturbing.

It was designed to be OBSCENE in the truest sense of the word

It was never meant to arousing.

[quote] it was showed

Oh DEAR, R214.

That’s not a broadcast. Something was being broadcast, but it was nacreous in nature, or would be.

[quote] I earlier pointed out that I'd never seen a movie as depraved, and I stand by that.

I'm depraved on account of I'm deprived!

r216 has/had shown?

or simply they showed it...

R215 they’re lying. Nothing about this is erotic.

[quote] [R212] it was showed in gay porn theatre cruising room

Bullshit

A “gay porn theatre cruising room”? Please…

Saw this in the mid 70s in it's one showing in NYC. I remember James Coco was sitting with some men not too far from us. I found it totally gross but kind of fascinating. But I was young and had never seen anything like it. It was a different time.

Nothing about this is erotic.

That depends on your personal tastes.

Nothing about it is erotic period. It’s not a sexy film. It’s disgusting. It’s kids being tortured, abused, raped and murdered.

What’s erotic about that?

And that’s after they’re kidnapped. The blonde girl who is crying was kidnapped while with her mother. Her mother tried to stop it so was murdered in front of the girl.

Later in the film when she cries because of this she is forced to eat one of the men’s shit off the floor. He kneels down and shits on the floor and makes her eat it.

Nothing erotic about any of it.

It shows a stark differentiation between pornographic and obscene.

The cruelty and sadism is obscene.

You would have to be pathological to find this arousing.

It's just a movie, I don't know why some people are so offended by it...

R227, some people are not totally numb to the violence we call entertainment. How much straight male pornography is rape based?

Seems like most straight male porn is about stepmoms now?

Once again, the Karens here are shrieking--about a movie that's 50 years old.

Please write to your Senator today.

[quote] Later in the film when she cries because of this she is forced to eat one of the men’s shit off the floor. He kneels down and shits on the floor and makes her eat it.

[quote] Nothing erotic about any of it.

SEZ YOU!!

I only really became aware of the film because of the obscenity trial in Cincinnati (my hometown) referenced in R34. I had heard of the movie before then, but mainly as one of those 'nasty' movies that would never show in Ohio. The Pink Pyramid was the gay bookstore that was renting the movie, and it became clear that the prosecutors simply wanted to put them out of business. Therefore, conscientious citizens started clamoring to view it, which is exactly what happened with Cincinnati's Mapplethorpe trial, when people lined up to see photos of fist-fucking. I read the lurid descriptions of Salo in the local news, just as I have here on DL, and I know I don't want to see it. I posted on another thread that we need to be careful what we let our brains consume.

I know, TL;DR

[quote] I posted on another thread that we need to be careful what we let our brains consume.

Fuck sake. It's a movie. They were eating chocolate.

At work a group of late 20s / early 30s co-workers were all in agreement that the movie “Big” was “problematic” because a boy has sex with an adult woman. I kept my Gen-X mouth shut, but now I’m quite sorry I didn’t bring up SALO.

R234, You seem unhappy that a film that is supposed to inspire outrage actually succeeds? I'm not in favor of censoring it, but I'm in favor of using some judgment as to what we expose ourselves. Leave it up to the (adult) individual.

Hey, if there's grass on the field, play ball.

R236, I'm all in favor of leaving it up to the adult individual. And being an adult, one has to decide for oneself what to expose themselves to--no disagreement there. It's the outrage over the existence of this 50-year-old film that I find ridiculous.

I find Mame disturbng beyond belief

I think the outrage is justified.

Really, R240--and who should the outrage be aimed at, for a movie from 50 years ago? And it seems to be mainly you who's outraged, so..zzzzz...

It's actually showing this week in my hometown--my local repertory house is holding a special programming event called "Bleak Week" and is screening it for that (along with Cries and Whispers and Dancer in the Dark). And it's actually sold out!

I am amused so many other people want to see it.

You should plant yourself outside the theater and film interviews with the walkouts to post here (and/or on YouTube.)

People go to this film thinking it will be “edgy,” and make them cool… then get truly grossed out and leave.

This is not a first date movie.

I watched this a few times before and found it enjoyable, poetic, and even beautiful. But I could not make it through "The Circle of Shit" and think I was wise to duck out at that time. If you have read De Sade's book, it's 1000 times worse, incredibly distressing, visceral, and unspeakably cruel, like a portal directly to hell had opened up in his mind. He wrote the manuscript on sheets of toilet paper glued together.

Passolini's movie is a satire. I find the tone is quite similar to "Eyes Wide Shut," which was written and structured as a comedy but then had all the humor written out, so what is left is sombre and melancholic but also weirdly satiating. What EWS can only dream of hinting about is displayed fully and unambiguously in SALO.

OP - The acting was gorgeous and the scoring was beautiful?

I think you’re a bit confused 🫤

The MEN in the movie were gorgeous and beautiful.

[quote]R245 Passolini's movie is a satire.

A satire? Of what?

Politics, R247.

I don’t think you’re using the word satire correctly.

One could make the argument for calling it a satire. But political allegory might be a more apt description.

According to the Oxford definition, satire means: "humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues".

Salo could be almost entirely satirical if judged by that definition. If 75 minutes of all the gory, extreme content were removed and it were turned into a PG version, it would still be structured to be viewed that way.

Of course, you would need to watch the whole thing first to recognize that.

[quote]This was on a Criterion DVD about 20 years ago.

A HD version is available to watch on archive.org.

R252, the Criterion DVD is not HD?

This is the Blu-ray transfer from 2011.

R252 and here I was worried I had no spank material for Saturday night.

I would have profound, life-changing sex with all three guys on that poster.

I want this in 4k UHD. I want to see the consistency of the shit. I think it's like chocolate pudding with chunks of pineapple. Though seeing the obviousness of the prosthetic penises will be a real disappointment.

I think it was chocolate and mandarin oranges.

Charles Laughton would have been bitterly disappointed.

That man knew his shit!

This film is just gross. All around. Gross.

[quote] I want this in 4k UHD. I want to see the consistency of the shit.

Sometimes I am taken aback by how incredibly different the desires of people on this forum are from my own.

R95 is as fake as Hollywood tits.

She thinks she has the wits to know child pornography from putti waving from the heavens.

Trumpian arrogance. Philistine sensibilities and Puritan stupidity. What a mix these types are, and to no positive effect.

Only a pedo gets annoyed by someone speaking against CP

R263 this is the perfect Segway for you to explain to everyone why you don’t work and live off family

No thanks. I’ve been living through 180 days of MAGA, which is far worse.

I haven't posted in this thread despite seeing it pop up since May because I think this movie is a fucking bore and not worth the energy. But it's Saturday and I'm mad at the world, so what the hell:

I agree with the posters who regard Salo as catnip for academic edgelords. I saw it once - predictably in college. I'll never see it again - not because it's disturbing but because its politics are not so deep as to require another wallow in the shit.

However, the inability of some posters here (or is it just one persistent poster?) to delineate satire from pornography/the literal from metaphor is a pretty harrowing example of the decline of media literacy and public debate.

Here's the thing about the Marquis de Sade in general: his erotic fantasies are juvenile and absurd. If he were alive and (un)well today, he'd be writing autistic Hannibal Lecter fanfics at Archive of Our Own. It sure as hell isn't sexy or effectively erotic.

I don't disagree with critiques of the use of some teenaged actors among the cast. It's not 'porn,' no matter how many times you label it as such, but it still creeps me the fuck out.

However, that Pasolini was "showing to the world his most depraved fantasies exploiting and abusing minors" is an absurd allegation. That kind of Twitter-level hyperbole is why people in this thread keep calling you a frau.

Salo is a Marxist satire on the persistence of fascism and exploitation in Italy thirty years after Il duce's death. The shit-eating, for example, is not scat fetish content - It's a heavy-handed political metaphor on the nature of mass-produced food under capitalism (a trip to the grocery store or a look at obesity statistics will demonstrate that we're still eating the same shit), and of political leaders who make us eat their (metaphorical bull-)shit. The 'erotic' content to which you object beats you over the head with how gross and absurd it is. The final burst of violence at the end is perfunctory, stupid, and unnecessary. That's the point - even the worst state violence (extermination camps, Kristi Noem's plastic surgery, etc.) becomes banal once the get you accustomed to it.

These are all salient ideas. Too bad the movie's an empty provocation and a bore. Like a lot of Marxist films, Salo is a dissertation and not a movie. If it weren't for canny promoters hawking its salacious content ("BANNED IN EUROPE!") and for the nature of Pasolini's death, this movie would be an embarrassing footnote.

[quote] this is the perfect Segway for you to explain to everyone why you don’t work and live off family

Oh, dear.

Find something important to be outraged about.

You know, I like The Sound of Music.

They cut the scat stuff from "My Favorite Things" for the movie version, R269.

Like "It's a Wonderful Life," this film was in the public domain and shown on television constantly when I was growing up. Now, sadly, since Criterion snatched it up, it's only shown once a year on the Criterion Channel--just like Frank Capra's great, inspirational and heartwarming classic. Movies with this level of torture and gore would bring the masses back to theaters!

R271 this film has never been shown on television, ever.

Why lie about such a thing? Not to mention your abuse of the FF feature. Not to mention your post at r266 is full of shit and you used a website to come up with half those words.

R266 here. I'm not R271 and I'm sorry that you don't know how to read. We'll have a telethon for you.

^ and also that you are so obtuse that you didn't get that 271's post was obviously satire.

A lot of Italian films from the 70s were basically trying to outdo each other with deranged and obscene content. I own the most recent Criterion release of this and it's really just a collection of "torture porn" scenes strung together with a loose narrative. In that way, it's not unlike "Mommie Dearest" which, some would say, is just a series of abuse scenes one after the next, like some mildly perverse showcase of children suffering. We're there to look at the car crash, not so much care about any of the supposedly deeper themes going on underneath it all.

Loved it!

R272 haha I remember years ago when It’s a Wonderful Life was public domain that on Christmas Eve, you would turn on the TV and change the channel and you'd see it on almost every station.

Imagine that with Salo!

R266 Thank you! Written with clarity.

R272 You sound awfully like someone who believes that any use of an em dash is evidence of AI and not a symptom of your own ignorance.

They'll take em dashes out of my cold, dead hands R279.