This post contains nudity
Saló is one of the movies you see only once and that leaves you marked by the horrors shown, but despite everything, it is very good and I recommend it.
Salò, or the 120 days of Sodom, is a 1975 Italian-French horror art film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. The film is a loose adaptation of the book The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade. The film focuses on four rich and corrupt Italian libertines, during the time of the Fascist Republic of Salò (1943-1945). Libertines kidnap eighteen teenagers and subject them to four months of extreme violence, sadism and sexual and mental torture.
The confluence of the thematic content in the film that ranges from the political and sociohistorical to the psychological and sexual has led to a great critical discussion of the film. It has been praised and criticized by several historians and film critics and was named the most terrifying film number 65 ever made by the Chicago Critics Association in 2006.
The film is divided into 4 circles, which are inspired by the passages of Dante's Divine Comedy, these are:
Anteinferno
Circle of mania
Circle of shit
Circle of blood
Anteinferno
We start the journey in the times of fascist Italy, 4 men of high society sign an agreement in which dictates that they will have to marry their daughters.
On the other hand Italians and Germans begin to capture teenagers at the request of these 4 men, The most virile will be selected as colaborators and soldiers. 8 boys and 8 girls will be selected (of which several were minors at the time of filming). They are selected as if they were slaves, they have to undress if is ordered.
The captured teenagers are taken to a village where they are gathered to listen to the speech prepared by the 4 men, the introduction to hell, you who enter, abandon all hope, the village is a place without law, those who enter do not belong more to the society, they are dead.
Circle of mania
In this segment we are shown one of the 4 prostitutes assistants of the 4 men. Prostitutes have the task of narrating experiences of their past, counting the abuses passed as childs but made them what they are.
Taking into account the 4 men:
The President: he is the leader of the 4 although he does not seem the most dominant, he lets himself be carried away by the humor and counts some other joke.
The Magistrate: The quietest of the 4, is a cold and distant man with strong feelings, almost not notice in the film.
The Bishop: He is a superb man and the one who is quickest to alter, has a strong character.
The Duke: A robust man in whom we can appreciate his coolness when doing things.
Continuing the theme, one of the prostitutes, Mrs. Vaccari tells his anecdotes which often excite men who do not have a fixed tendency in terms of sexual orientation. The narratives excite the men and these to satisfy themselves take any of the captured teenagers.
The number 4 has relevance: There are 4 men in charge of the village, there are 4 prostitutes, the teenagers are captured 4 months, the hierarchical classes shown in the film are 4.
Nudity is also something that begins to predominate on the screen, nudity symbolizes the lowest of the scale, makes the person feel inferior and humiliated. This is going to be worth the first part.
In one of Mrs. Vaccari's stories, the president came up with something, there were teenagers of whom they suspected their gender, so they had to be encouraged to define them. They choose 2 teenagers: Sergio and Renata. When these teenagers are stimulated and brought to orgasm they are forced to marry.
After the wedding the teenagers are taken like dogs, tied to the neck and acting as such, the 4 men throw them food and they are forced to eat from the ground, being only one of the many humiliations.
Circle of shit
Here is the circle of coprophagy, the hardest part to see. Start with the second prostitute, Mrs. Maggi, who like Mrs. Vaccari her anecdotes go back to when she was a child. Their stories are marked by the ingestion of feces by their clients.
In one part Mrs. Maggi tells that her mother begged her to leave her life as a prostitute, so she decided to kill her to be free, this makes the Duke say that he also killed his mother and mentions that the mother is not owed anything .
This causes one of the girls to start crying inconsolably because when she was captured her mother tried to defend her, but she fell into a river and drowned.
The duke looks at her and asks if the story has caused her those feelings, decides that she should apply what Mrs. Maggi told in her stories, eat shit. So the duke crouches and defecates on the ground, forces the girl to eat his excrement as punishment.
After having done this, the president decides that these practices are gonna be done, from now on the teenagers will have to defecate in cups and eat their excrement, whoever does not do so will be sanctioned in the black book.
Then come the most disgusting scene we'll see in the movie, the shit dinner (literally). All are forced to serve excrement and eat, Mrs. Maggi points it out as a very exquisite taste. Sergio must now marry the magistrate.
After the dinner the 4 men make a contest about which teenager has the best ass, the bishop insists that the winner will be killed immediately upon winning, he would not have to suffer more.
After thinking and voting for one, they proceed to remove the blindfold from his head to find out who won, a gun is placed on his head and accepting his fate with relief he closes his eyes.
However, they do not give him that much-desired prize, the gun did not have bullets. The bishop tells him that they will not kill him once, they will kill him a thousand times for eternity if eternity has an end.
Circle of blood
This last part will focus on torture by the 4 men. Begin with the president, the magistrate and the duke dressing elegantly as women, they will marry their collaborators.
Upon entering the room we can see that the bishop is dressed in a somewhat curious robe, the 3 men go to him and the ceremony begins.
After finishing the ceremony, in the night the bishop goes to see the teenagers who were sleeping, when walking near one of the boys he tells him that he has something to say to him, a girl has a hidden photo. The bishop goes to the girls' room and finds the one with the hidden photo, a photo that could be of a family member of her.
The girl to avoid being punished tells the bishop that other girls were breaking the rules too, the bishop goes to the place and finds them having lesbian relationships. The bishop takes out his gun and points it at one, this tells him that a collaborator is breaking the rules too, so they end up betraying each other.
The 4 men go to look for the collaborator and they finds him having sex with a black maid, this makes the men take out their pistols and point him to kill him, in this the collaborator makes a fascist salute.
This causes the men to be amazed and to lower their weapons, however the duke in cold blood shoots him first and the others follow him on the spot.
Then the teenagers are reunited for an announcement, those that receive a blue ribbon will be turned into collaborators, those that no, will be condemned to a painful and slow death.
One of the prostitutes tells the young people about the ritual of torture, describing all the atrocities that are done in a tone of grace, at the end of the narration the ritual begins, the men take turns each to observe the tortures.
To end this last circle a collaborator changes the radio of the president's room and invites another to dance, ending with a calm song while outside everything is hell.
