The film is a pared down Nazi/Fascist transposition of the Marquis de Sade's book (The One Hundred & Twenty Days of Sodom), using Dante's Inferno as the synthesis for its structure. It portrays in gruelling detail a mindset whose total power and subsequent contempt for humanity has exhausted its repertoire of curtailment and subjection. All that is left to invigorate and excite the omnipotent despots is the humiliation, torture and execution of the most vulnerable.

The first part, AntiInferno, sets up the degradations that follow. Eighteen boys and girls are stalked, captured and inspected for beauty and purity by the Masters. Those with physical defects are not tolerated: an otherwise pretty girl is vehemently rejected because of a missing tooth; non-Aryans are made servants.

A poem is recited by one of the Masters. It underlines the tacit collaboration between rulers and a self-serving bourgeoisie that allows totalitarian governments to flourish:

In puberty's ambush, maiden's bloom,
All unaware of impending doom.
They listen to the radio, drink tea,
Unaware they will lose their liberty.
While the bourgeoisie recoil not from slaughter,
Though victim be son and daughter.

The Circle of Manias introduces Four Women Storytellers who take turns enthusiastically describing their sexual abasements as little girls in order to eroticise the Masters. This part has a dreamlike quality; the camera moves from enraptured Despots to laughing guards to frightened victims. One of the victims attempts to flee; she is rewarded by having her throat slit as guards and collaborators sing the Fascist anthem, Faccetta Nera.

The Circle of Shit highlights the right wing's legacy to the world: the worship of death and excrement. Here a beautiful blonde girl, the Aryan ideal, is forced to eat the fresh, steaming turds of the Duke, just as entire populations are forced to swallow the lifeless, regressive policies of deranged Prime Ministers and Presidents.

Just as confronting is the story of the girl's capture. As if she were telling a joke, a storyteller relates that the girl's mother was thrown into the river where she drowned in full view of her daughter. The President becomes so aroused by this heartless tale that he runs to another room to masturbate in isolation before a mirror. His dissociation from any possibility of human relationship is so great that
only through the girl's humiliation into a dehumanised object can he properly worship that which he adores above everything, his own penis.

After a gala dinner in which the only course is a massive mound of turds excreted by the male and female victims, a contest is held to see who has the most attractive arse. Unsurprisingly, the reward for the winner is execution. In the mind of the Right, Beauty is both desirable and an affront; it must be destroyed.

The Circle of Blood concludes the film. The drone of Allied bombers is heard overhead as the young people are taken to a courtyard and tortured in the most gruesome ways -- scalping, eye stabbing, branding -- before being put to death as slowly as possible. The Masters take turns inflicting pain and retiring to a room to watch through binoculars. The film ends with two young guards listening to Ennio Morricone's lilting salon music, heard throughout the film, as the executions continue. One of them casually asks the other about his girlfriend, as if nothing unusual were happening.

Few films have been as controversial as Salò. Most reviewers are unable to get past the gruesome scenes of torture to contemplate Pasolini's intention: the portrayal of fascist/totalitarian regimes for what they are.

It is banned in Australia and other countries and the DVD is almost impossible to find. Criterion Collection DVDs were withdrawn from the market in 2000. A mint copy can reportedly fetch as much as $1000 US. As of this writing, there is a "like new" 112 minute version selling for $95 from Amazon Canada. I understand the film screens occasionally in theatres in France and Holland.

We are seeing a new and welcome trend in political films of late; perhaps the best of these is Syriana. But none of them can match Pasolini's brutal depiction of the ubiquitous backdrop to all calamitous political events: the ascent to power of right wing misanthropy. And that includes the so-called leftist monsters Stalin and Mao. Their original inspiration may have been the socialist ideal but they turned right and kept on going.

-- Benoît Balz

Links:
IMDb
Bill Mousoulis: In the Extreme: Pasolini's Salò. More interesting links at bottom of his essay.
For more links, Google "Pasolini's Salo".