Salo o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Salò (as the film is commonly abbreviated) is set in Fascist Italy in 1944, in the Republic of Salò. The film is divided into four segments that loosely parallel Dante's Inferno: Anteinferno, Circle of Manias, Circle of Shit and Circle of Blood.

Four men of power, referred to as the President, the Duke, the Bishop, and the Magistrate, agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. With the aid of several young male collaborators, they kidnap sixteen young men and women (eight male, eight female), and take them to a palace near Marzabotto. With them are four middle-aged women, also collaborators, whose function will be to recount various arousing stories for the men of power, and who will in turn exploit their victims sexually and sadistically.

The film depicts the three days spent at the palace, during which time the four men of power devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. In one of the film's most infamous scenes, a young woman is forced to eat the feces of the President; later, the rest of the victims are presented with a giant meal of human feces. (The "feces" was created with chocolate sauce and orange marmalade, which ironically enough made it quite palatable to the actors.) At the end of the three days, the victims that have not chosen to collaborate with their tormentors are murdered in various gruesome ways: scalping, branding, having tongues and eyes cut out.

Pasolini spent part of his childhood in the Republic of Salò. During this time he witnessed a great many cruelties on the part of the Italian army, also witnessing the death of his brother. Many of his memories of the experience informed the creation of Salò. He also claimed that the film was highly symbolic and metaphorical; for instance, that the feces-eating scenes were an indictment of mass-produced foods, which he labeled "useless refuse."

Controversy over the film exists to this day, with many praising the film for its fearlessness and willingness to contemplate the unthinkable, while others condemn it roundly for being little more than a pretentious exploitation movie.

The film has been banned in several countries due to its graphic portrayals of rape, torture and murder -- mainly that of people suspected to be younger than 18 years of age. Many questions about the film's legality have been raised -- namely, whether or not the actors and actresses that participate in the (admittedly simulated) sexual or violent acts in the film were of the age of consent.

Several versions of the film have been said to exist. The film originally ran approximately 145 minutes, but Pasolini himself removed 25 minutes to help the pacing. The longest available version is the DVD from the BFI, which features a short scene usually missing from other prints -- during the first wedding ceremony, one of the masters quotes a poem by Gottfried Benn.

For a time the film was unavailable in many countries, although it is now available uncut on DVD in the United Kingdom, France and Italy. It has run into intermittent legal trouble in the United States, although a Criterion Collection DVD edition has been produced there (although it was withdrawn due to conflicts with Pasolini's estate over the licensing to the film).

;Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini; ;Script: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Citti; ;Camera: Tonino Delli Colli; ;Produced by: Alberto Grimaldi for PEA (Rome)/Les Productions Artistes Associés (Paris); ;Actors: Paolo Bonacelli, Aldo Valletti, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Sonia Saviange, Caterina Boratto, Sergio Fascetti, Bruno Musso, Giuliana Melis, Dorit Henke and others

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