07-29-2009, 10:21 AM
|
#3463 (permalink)
|
|
Laid back
|
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom) 7.5/10
Quote:
Salò (the film's common abbreviation) occurs in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist rump state established in the Nazi-occupied portion of Italy in 1944. The story is in four segments loosely parallel to Dante's Inferno: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Feces, and the Circle of Blood.
Four men of power, the Duke (Duc de Blangis), the Bishop, the Magistrate (Curval), and the President agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. With the aid of several collaborator young men, they kidnap eighteen young men and women (nine of each sex), and take them to a palace near Marzabotto. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, whose function in the debauchery will be to recount erotically arousing stories for the men of power, and who, in turn, will sadistically exploit their victims.
The story depicts the many days at the palace, during which the four men of power devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. A most infamous scene shows a young woman forced to eat the feces of the Duke; later, the other victims are presented a giant meal of human feces. At story's end, the victims who chose to not collaborate with their fascist tormentors are gruesomely murdered: scalping, branding, tongue and eyes cut out (see Franco Merli). The viewer is distanced from the vilest tortures, because they are viewed through binoculars. The film's final shot portrays the complacency, myopia, and desensitization of the masses: two young soldiers, who had witnessed and collaborated in all of the prior atrocities, dance a simple waltz together.
|
It wasn't terrible. It was graphic and gruesome, but nothing over the top. I wanted to see it to be shocked, and it did that, but only to a mild extent. Recommended if you're into watching movies strictly because they're hard to find or hard to watch, though I didn't have much trouble with either.
__________________
Universal Truth Is Not Measured In Mass Appeal
|
|
|