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I have been avoiding Salo for years and years, purely because it is renowned for its filthy content and I was afraid of just what it would stain on my retinas permanently. Banned in Australia since 1976, it was released for a limited time in 1993 and advertised luridly on arthouse theatre posters. I remember the movie entering my consciousness via these posters, and the controversy surrounding it has stuck in my mind to the point where I built it up to be the penultimate of foul, the grossest of gross, the WRONGEST MOVIE EVER. My young mind assumed it was just one long, horrifically graphic orgy. With obese people. And flowers. I was about 60% correct.
It's kinda like a deformed American Pie crossed with Hostel then re-crossed with some silent art film where people just pose poetically in arty rooms with fancy paintings and beautiful tile-work, while holding flowers and shit. Lots of teens, lots of sex and lots of super-grossness. Salo is infamous for its coprophagia scene (that's poo-eating, kids). This gives you an idea of why I avoided it for so long.
Choosing to watch it with the equally disturbed Michael, we nicknamed it The Poo Movie and unfortunately had to subject three other people to it's awesome grottiness. Nathan coped well, but Michelle kept shrieking and Nick actually fled the house towards the end. Mind you, this is not the first time I have damaged people with my movie choices.
Based on the Marquis De Sade's novel The 120 Days of Sodom, but transposed to WWII era Italy under Mussolini's reign, it follows four uber-wealthy, super-powerful men as they gather accomplices and kidnap eighteen innocents, taking them away to a secluded mansion and doing whatever the hell they want to them; beating them, raping them, dehumanising them and ultimately killing them. In a somewhat fancy manner. Just because they can.
That is perhaps the only logical point to this movie: rich bastards will do whatever the fuck they want. JUST COS. And you will shut up, and you will like it. Or they'll cut your goddamn eyes out and burn your nipples off.
The film is very creepy on a deeper level, as the allusions to fascism and the Nazi state of Salo are all too realistic. It is fiction, but chances are all of these atrocities have occurred on some level, to someone held prisoner somewhere. One of the libertines says, "we fascists are the only true anarchists...in fact, the one true anarchy is that of power". The movie is a statement on society in general; the men spurt poetry and philosophical crap all the way through, as a way of justifying their abhorrent behaviour and their wielding of the ultimate power -- sex.
Story wise, things are none too clear, and I had to keep trying to explain portions from what I knew of the book. Reading subtitles is quite difficult while distracted by nakedness and terrible teeth...seriously, were there no dentists in the 1970s?
Visually, it is quite stunning, and has some of the most iconic and memorable images cinema has given. The mostly teenage cast are pretty in an Italian street urchin kinda way, and they hang around naked so much you just get used to them, well, hanging around naked.
Look at us! We're nude on the steps! With flowers!
Playing doggy games, complete with collars, dog food and a hearty round of howling
A jolly round of Heads Down, Bums Up (winner gets a shot to the head!)
Bathe in the poo bucket. It's joyous. And warm. You won't feel shameful at all.
The creepy-weird second wedding made no fucking sense whatsoever. Satan was involved somehow.
Dreamy shots of pretty boys
More nudie. In an arty manner. Lookit that fancy flooring!
People even die in a graceful swooning manner.
And now we cut your tongue out, little dude!
The thing that actually scared me the most was the creepy-ass cross-eyed dude (The President) who did nothing but leer lasciviously. At everything. His manky old face was set to permanent leer, and it was he that inevitably made Nick flee into the night, he that threatened to give me endless nightmares. It didn't help that he was very excited about flashing him bum to everyone and dressing in a creepy leather undies outfit.
If ever there were a poster child for dirty old men, this is he. Pooey chin and all.
Just look at him. So pretty.
He gets married off to Renata in the infamous nudie wedding.
Renata just cries a bunch cos they killed her mother and made her eat a poo off the floor.
Shut your crying hole, Renata, you got a hottie for a hubby!
Then they put him in a wedding dress cos he's so durn pretty. And that old whore has bad teeth.
Sergio is not happy. The wedding cake they gave him was shit. Literally.
Then they burn the poor love's nipples off. Oh Sergio!
Salo is a contradiction of sorts. It is an ugly movie, with moments of beauty. It is an important movie making all sorts of political statements, but it ultimately means nothing. It is gruesome and very difficult to watch at times, but also a work of art. It was lambasted for all it's nudie teens and near-pornography, but they apparently had a great time making it.
As gross and uncomfortable as it makes you feel, Salo is almost comical by today's torture-porn standards. When the four men dressed in drag we were falling about laughing, but I think we all felt that some of our laughter was of the nervous, should-I-be-amused-when-I'm-fucking-creeped-out? variety.
Reading the original text of the Marquis De Sade's novel is far far FAR more gruesome and soul-destroying than this film. One of the last scenes of the book is a young girl being quite literally torn apart from the inside out. And the children in the novel are actual children, on average about 12 years old. Conclusion? De Sade was one royally fucked-up unit, and thank God they locked him up in the Bastille.
Salo will uphold it's cult status as the first truly sickening film issued. Not everyone will be able to stomach it, but anyone interested in film must view it at least once. There is something haunting about it which still strikes me even when I watch the trailer now; the maudlin piano music, the sullen faces of the captives, the final comical waltz performed by two boys which ultimately says, It all means nothing. Torture, sex, death. It means nothing. Motherfuckers, let's dance.
The ultimate conclusion? Michael and I should probably watch these fucked up movies alone. Cos you KNOW there will be more fucked up movies.
Just watch the fucking movie. Or we shoot you. And we'll probably have sex with you afterwards.
Then that cross-eyed dude's gonna flash his bum. And we shall laugh inappropriately.
And it will be positively AWFUL.
Fascism, hurrah!
