The story takes place at the end of World War II in northern fascist Italy where four prominent men gather 18 adolescents which they intend to use for their depraved games.   Prior to the beginning of the games the four men recite the rules of the games, which are to be followed or death will be dealt to the rule breakers.  The depraved entertainment is divided into three different categories: Circle of Obsessions, Circle of Shit, and Circle of Blood.  These three categories of sick entertainment are administered by three middle-aged women that disclose dark tales of their pasts while a fourth woman is accompanying the tales with tunes from a piano.  These tales raises an internal passion within the four men to molest, desecrate, and viciously destroy anything of goodness within the surviving adolescents.

Pier Paolo Pasolini forces the remaining audience to witness brutality and bizarre behavior.  The audience's testimony to the cruelty on the screen is to provoke a notion that the viewers are accomplices to the cruel crimes committed in the screen while remaining seated watching.  The guilt seems to be on those that view the last scenes suggests this through the use of the binoculars through which the audience can observe ritualistic mutilation, torture, and murder of the remaining adolescents.

Salo will remain as one of the most disturbing films ever made as it exploits the violence and degradation of youth.  Enduring the violence and the despicable behavior is torturous, which has no other purpose than to corrupt and destroy.  Cumulatively, Salo is a horrible cinematic experience as it offends, disgusts, revolts, and causes emotional dreadfulness.  Yet, underneath the despicable acts in the film there is a well planned thought, which could easily be missed.  However, it is a thought that should be missed, if you want to remain innocent to the horrors of the world.

DIRECTED BY

Pier Paolo Pasolini

COUNTRY

Italy / France

 
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