Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini

Overview

"The final work of notorious Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, this film updates the Marquis de Sade's most extreme novel to fascist Italy in the final days of WW II. Dispensing with the novel's meditations on sexual liberation and the search for truth, Pasolini presents four decadents who kidnap dozens of young men and women and subject them to the most hideous forms of torture and perversion in an isolated villa. Rape, murder, and a coprophagic banquet are only the beginning of the atrocities on display. Photographed by Tonino Delli Colli, the film also features a lavish score by Ennio Morricone."

Product Details

Release Date:	10/04/2011
UPC:	0715515087414
Original Release:	1975
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:56:00
Sales rank:	1,077

Special Features

Salò": Yesterday and Today, a thirty-three minute Documentary featuring Interviews with Director Pier Paolo Pasolini, Actor-Filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette, and Pasolini friend Nineto Davoli; ; Fade to Black, a twenty-three-minute Documentary featuring Directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, and John Maybury, as well as scholar David Forgacs; ; The End of "Salò," a forty-minute Documentary about the film's production; ; Video Interviews with Set Designer Dante Ferretti and Director and Film Scholar Jean-Pierre Gorin; ; Theatrical Trailer; ; Plus: A Booklet Featuring essays by Neil Bartlett, Breillat, Naomi Greene, Sam Rohdie, Roberto Chiesi, and Gary Indiana, and excerpts from Gideon Bachman's on-set diary

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Paolo Bonacelli	The Duke
Giorgio Cataldi	The Bishop
Umberto Paolo Quintavalle	Actor
Caterina Boratto	Signora Castelli
Elsa DeGirogi	Signora Vaccari
Hélène Surgère	Signora Vaccari
Sonia Saviange	The Piano Virtuoso
Sergio Fascetti	Masked Victim
Bruno Musso	Masked Victim
Ines Pellegrini	The slavegirl
Antonio Orlando	Masked Victim
Claudio Cicchetti	Masked Victim
Franco Merli	Masked Victim
Umberto Chessari	Masked Victim
Lamberto Book	Masked Victim
Gaspare DiJenno	Masked Victim
Giuliana Melis	Female Victim
Faridah Malik	Female Victim
Graziella Aniceto	Female Victim
Renata Moar	Female Victim
Dorit Henke	Female Victim
Antinisca Nemour	Female Victim
Benedetta Gaetani	Female Victim
Olga Andreis	Female Victim
Tatiana Mogilansky	Young Woman
Susanna Radaelli	Young Woman
Giuliana Orlandi	Young Woman
Liana Acquaviva	Young Woman
Rinaldo Missaglia	Young soldier
Giuseppe Patruno	Young Soldier
Guido Galletti	Young Soldier
Efioso Etzi	Young Soldier
Claudio Troccoli	Collaborator
Fabrizio Menichini	Collaborator
Maurizio Valaguzza	Collaborator
Ezio Manni	Collaborator
Paola Pieracci	Procuress/servant
Carla Terlizzi	Procuress/servant
Anna Maria Dossena	Procuress/servant
Anna Recchimuzzi	Procuress/servant
Marco Bellocchio	The President (Dubbed Voice)
Laura Betti	Signora Vaccari (Dubbed Voice)
Michel Piccoli	Voice of the Duke (French Version)
Caterina Bonacelli	Actor
Ennio Morricone	Composer

Technical Credits

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Sergio Citti

Pier Paolo Pasolini	Director,Screenwriter
Alberto Grimaldi	Producer
Sergio Citti	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom is an intensely challenging film, an endurance test which some will find provocative and rewarding, but which many are likely to find repulsive and repugnant. Viewers should be warned: this is not an easy film to watch by any stretch of the imagination. The entire film is a series of increasingly violent and humiliating exercises in sadism, which become increasingly graphic as the film progresses; the final "Circle of Death" is excruciating to view. Yet it is not simply the explicitness of the decadence and cruelty on display that makes Salo the uniquely disturbing experience that it is. Indeed, other films are more graphic in this area. But these other films tend to present these experiences in an ironic, campy or otherwise contextual manner that lessens their impact. Salo takes a purposely distancing view, a "hands off" approach that is much more harrowing and that relentlessly drives home its intended atmosphere of hopelessness and impotence. Its creator, Pier Paolo Pasolini is intent on getting across his message that there are depths of humanity that are intensely vile and repulsive and that to ignore the existence of this can only lead to its re-emergence and domination. He is also making implicit statements about how this depravity is a feature of both Fascism and capitalism. Pasolini purposely makes Salo a disturbing and disgusting experience to drive home his points; whether a viewer feels that sitting through two hours of sadism in order to absorb this point is worthwhile or not will influence his reaction to the work. Objectively, however, it can be said that Pasolini's intentionally static direction is impressive, as is his ability to create tension despite this static quality, and that {Torino Delli Colli's cinematography and the physical production are stunning.