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Salo - Criterion Collection

Salo - Criterion Collection

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Was it worth dying for?
Review: Though theoretically I would recommend this film, it is by no means very good. Some believe it to be Pasolini's brilliant depiction/indictment of fascist Italy and the cathloc church, but I see it as Pasolini's greatest mistake. The film begins well enough, (sparing any details) I will say that it starts out a well concieved commentary, but soon the film gets lost in an utterly pointless, and indulgent work of sexual preversion, rape, and violence. Though I admit, it was these features that originally drew me to this film. I was told it was one of the most shocking, disgusting films ever. This statement peaked my curiosity, but now, after having seen it for myself, I do certainly believe it to be both shocking and disgusting, but this is not why I criticize it. I was upset that the violence and sexual degregation of this film were without any true meaning or message. I understand Pasolini's intended message, but I saw none of it in the film. So why do I recommend it? Because after all of it I am glad that I saw it, and I think that other should have the chance. Not as much to see a good movie, as to see what was behind one of cinema's greatest controversies, from one of cinema's finest artists.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Bad, the Nihilistic, the Sadistic
Review: This is the film where art and torture become one. Moral values are tempered to relativism by a descent into absolute power and depravity. Salo takes the nihilistic worldview of Materialism to its logical extreme. The bleakest idea I have considered is that this is where we are heading today.

Watch at your own risk. Nothing should be censored (almost), but some things leave you wondering if you really wanted to see that?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't get ripped of by the wolves.....
Review: I have not yet watched this movie, however I have recently saw a reference to it on the BBC regarding the concept of obscenity. My comments here are to save you some cash....If you want to purchase it GO TO AMAZON.CO.UK you can buy it there... There is one drawback, you must have a DVD player that can take either a European disc or a universal player. These parasites who are selling used copies... I hope this information helps you!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: MUST SEE
Review: I believe this movie must be seen by all fans of cinema. Certainly a film consisting of rape, murder, urinating, defecating, torture and humiliation will be disturbing and downright sickening to most viewers, but the way that Pasolini potrays and weaves these acts of depravity into the story is truly brilliant.

To qoute a friend of mine who viewed the film (recommendation: watch this film alone) this is a movie that HAD to be made, because it gives an excellent reference point to how far a film can push the boundaries of acceptable viewing (acceptable as in disturbing imagery and story). Even though the movie is an attack on Fascism, to me the movie represented a step-by-step guide in preparing onself into the descent to Hell.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Slow, Pretentious, Disturbing
Review: Pasolini very freely adapts de Sade in this tale of young innocents kidnapped for use as sexual toys by the 'powerful but depraved' during World War II. In theory, the film is a "metaphor" for the "German rape of Italy." In practice, it emerges as so much directorial self-importance and self-indulgence.

SALO is an extremely slow and rather ineptly filmed motion picture enlivened only by bouts of sexual abuse and physical torture. Those expecting an erotic tone will be disappointed; even so, certain images will linger in mind long after the film ends. The catch: the images that linger do so by reason of their extremely distasteful nature. Spare yourself the annoyance and give it a miss.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Yet, It's Only A Film
Review: I first stumbled across this movie in the "cult" section of my local video store and was immediately intrigued. I had hear of de Sade, and was interested to see how his work would be interpreted here.

James Baldwin once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that the job of the artist is to hold a mirror up to society, so that we may see ourselves whether we like all that we see or not. And of course, is we don't like what we see, then it is the artist who must be punished for showing it to us in the first place. That appears to be what happened in Passolini's case.

This film is bound to get a reatsion, whether fascination or revulsion, but it doesn't reveal anything of which we shouldn't already be aware. However much we want to turn away from the reflection, we cannot - whether out of disbelief or a wonder at just where and when it will all end. In the end, what seemed to have started out as game of indulgence ends in wordless brutality that remains in one's mind long after the images have faded from the screen. And while the scenes of rape and mutilation are shocking, they are not at all surprising. How else did we think it would all end?

What people may find most disturbing is that Passolini simply ends the story without offering any hope of redemption, a reprieve or a way out for either his audience or his characters. Instead, he leaves us with a blank screen, and an unspoken knowledge that how it ends - how man's inhumanity to man ends, how the indulgence of our own desires at the expense of others ends, how abusing power without concern for how it effect others ends - rests in our own hands and how we conduct outselves. Knowing, and having been shown by Passolini, just what we are capable of, being left with that responsibility is many times more horrible than any image Passolini has shown us through our own reflection.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Extremism as art form, life philosophy
Review: Now, how do we begin? Well, I can honestly say, though this film is disturbing, I wasn't nearly as shocked as I assumed I was going to be. I tried reading the novel by the Marquis de Sade, but I felt it polluted the senses if you gave it too much of your time. I may finish it one day.
The film, on the other hand, is a darkly comic look at fascism through the eyes of...well, the audience. WE are the eyes. This film makes you take absoloutely NO opinion. You aren't swayed either way, you are just sort of stuck there with your mouth hanging open. It makes you feel numb, maybe because you feel as if you're watching a History Channel documentary,or maybe it's because the preversions are presented to you so matter-of-factly. There is no music to signify the heroes, the villains, no tone of camera movements, no dialogue to make one group right or the other wrong, it's just...there. Maybe that is the ultimately disturbing aspect of these atrocities. The film is more of a physical and emotional experience than a viewing experience. I felt repulsed with myself for not being more shocked, but in a time and day where violence IS society, I feel that maybe this only strengthens Pasolini's point. If he had one. He might have very well been the ultimate deciever..make a film that comes across as a message, but in reality is just a handbook for your own passions for nihilism. We may never know, now that Pasolini is gone. But the movie asks one ultimate question. What makes the fascists wrong, and "civil" society right?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I have no respect for this film.No stars.
Review: Why should I have any respect for a film that is as pointless as watching a dog chew a bone?People who have seen the film tell me that Pasolini made the film to show the true ways of our human nature and how bad people can be.What a bunch of crock!This is the most violating and sickest film I have seen.Hey,I like watching graphic films but I have my limits and this film goes way over that limit."Salo,or the 120 Days of Sodom" is worthless,pointless,violating and the most trashiest,sleaziest sickest film ever made.Who cares if Pasolini was an artist.I have no respect for this film or Pasolini.How can I after what I have seen.I rather be strapped to a chair and be forced to watch "Battlefield Earth" repeatly.Another film that I didn't like.[...]God,I hate this film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Who made who
Review: Pasolini's swan song. I've shown this movie in my home and have been amused more by the reaction this movie gets than the movie itself. you kind of have to see it to believe it. The sets are awesome, the story is about as luridly satirical as you can get. I've said it once, I'll say it again Pier Paolo Pasolini was a modern day Marquis de Sade. It's a shame he was killed after this film opened.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Salo 120 Days of Sodom / Supposed Shocking Film.........
Review: I can remember wanting to see "The Exorcist" when it came out. I was only twelve at the time and living in London where it was rated "CERT X". My parents went and saw it and when I asked my mother what was all the fuss, she replied , Oh, things fly around in this little girl's room........ That was all I got....
Well, my mother is still a practicing Catholic so I'm sure she NEVER wants to view that film e v e r again ...... I had the same desire to see Salo 120 Days of Sodom, the same anticipation... I have to say that Salo 120 Days of Sodom is a visceral piece of anti-fascist film.... Taking DeSade's "classic" and moving it to his then , perhaps present, Italy,
Pasolini truly shows us the horrors of what I feel he felt in his heart and mind....Pasolini's films have always been hard to take, and many people dismiss him under the label of "boring art~house film maker", I think he was a brave, outspoken man who just didn't care about other's opinions of his work and finally was murdered for his beliefs. He was a fierce, loyal artist of the soul, and as for those who say this is a sleazy film to watch, I prefer John Water's early films for fun, groovy, Divine sleazy trash fun..... Salo is a difficult film to watch, on all levels, yet one that has stayed with me, just like "The Exorcist"...Or for that matter "Pink Flamingos"...All films mentioned pure genius.........


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