17. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom: Mangia

There is probably no film in the Criterion Collection more notorious and harder to sit through than Salo. As a cinephile, this was also the most "legendary" Criterion release, since I would always see copies of its prior out of print release on special displays, covered in glass, for over $100 at various movie stores. When I got deep into cult/trash cinema, Salo was described as one of those films that operates at the highest level of vulgar. Even before popping it in I had an idea of what to expect.

Nothing really prepares you for how disgusting this movie is, or how gross you feel while watching it. It's not even so much the acts depicted in the film as the attitude the characters have while performing them. The film is one humiliation after another, with the fascists treating abuse, rape and coprophagia as delicacies that only their refined tastes can appreciate. The victims are barely allowed any humanity here, and in one rare scene where Pasolini allows two victims to speak to each other, one of the girls tells the other "I can't take it." Because this is one of the only lines of dialog the victims have, it's also one of the most heartbreaking.

Pasolini goes out of his way to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, and the final scene of the victims being tortured to death is all the more brutal because it's filmed through the point of view of the masturbating fascists. You see tongues being carved off, penises being burned by candles, all through binocular-framed shots. By forcing the viewer to see things from the torturer's point of view, you are being made a participant, and this stands as the cruelest trick that Pasolini plays on the audience. You're punished for even seeing his film, and are just as complicit in the violence as the fascists. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

This film was never going to get a high ranking. It's hard for me to even say whether or not I "liked" this movie. It's clearly the work of a great filmmaker, and there's a philosophy behind this film that makes it more than a standard exploitation flick. Despite all the nudity and sex, it stands so far on the opposite end of "titillating" that my girlfriend and I could barely even touch each other for weeks after watching it. Pasolini was successful in what he set out to do, but I never, ever, ever want to watch this movie again, nor would I recommend it to anyone other than a die-hard cinephile. To the bottom of the list you go, Salo.

1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. A Night to Remember (1958)
12. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
13. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
14. Amarcord (1973)
15. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)


Next time: I hopefully get some cheap thrills with Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss.