Paolo Bonacelli

Giorgio Cataldi

Uberto Paolo Quintavalle

Aldo Valletti

Caterina Boratto

Elsa De Giorgi

Hélène Surgère

Sonia Saviange

Sergio Fascetti

Bruno Musso

Antonio Orlando

Claudio Cicchetti

Franco Merli

Umberto Chessari

Lamberto Book

Gaspare Di Jenno

Giuliana Melis

Faridah Malik

Graziella Aniceto

Renata Moar

Dorit Henke

Antiniska Nemour

Benedetta Gaetani

Olga Andreis

Tatiana Mogilansky

Susanna Radaelli

Giuliana Orlandi

Liana Acquaviva

Rinaldo Missaglia

Giuseppe Patruno

Guido Galletti

Efisio Etzi

Claudio Troccoli

Fabrizio Menichini

Maurizio Valaguzza

Ezio Manni

Paola Pieracci

Carla Terlizzi

Anna Maria Dossena

Anna Recchimuzzi

Ines Pellegrini

Alessandro Gennari

Marco Lucantoni

Dante Trazzi

Anna Troccoli

Pupi Avati

Sergio Citti

Dante Ferretti

Danilo Donati

Ennio Morricone

Maurizio Forti

Pietro Innocenti

Roland Barthes

Maurice Blanchot

Simone de Beauvoir

Pierre Klossowski

Philippe Sollers

Nico Naldini

Alberto Grimaldi

Beatrice Banfi

Arnaldo Graziosi

Enzo Ocone

Alfredo Menchini

Ugo De Rossi

Vanni Castellani

Carlo Tafani

Giancarlo Granatelli

Emilio Bestetti

Deborah Imogen Beer

Sandro Battaglia

Alfredo Tiberi

Giuseppina Sagliano

Domenico Pasqua Di Bisceglie

Giorgio Loviscek

Massimo Anzellotti

Fausto Ancillai

Italo Tomassi

Maria Teresa Barbasso

Fiorella Infascelli

Umberto Angelucci

Angelo Zemella

Alessandro Mattei

Antonio Girasante

Alberto De Stefanis

Renzo David

Osvaldo Desideri

Giusy Bovino

Nino Baragli

Tonino Delli Colli

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Horror

Drama

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Les Productions Artistes Associés

United Artists

France

Italy

United States of America

CinemaSerf

Well you have to hand it to Pier Paolo Pasolini - he had one hell of an imagination. Here he devises a story of a group of nine young men and women who are apprehended by four powerful Fascist officials and held captive for use in some of the most degrading and painful games of sex, humiliation and abuse. I was warned not to eat chocolate before I saw this, and towards the end of this bizarre depiction of cruelty, depravity and exploitation it became quite clear why - and I'd reiterate that here. There is something profoundly desperate about the film. It has nothing even vaguely redeeming about it. Is it allegorical? Perhaps Pasolini is swiping at what he perceived to be the beginning of the disposable culture? Perhaps the illustration of mankind at it's more obscene offers us his perspective on just what humanity had become by the mid 1970s? In any case, this is frankly rather a disgusting film to watch and though I did feel the ending had a great deal of suitable retribution to it, I still struggled to quite get my head around this epitome of man's inhumanity to their own kind. I doubt I shall ever watch it again, but it packed out the cinema in which I watched it and there was plenty of provocative conversation in the bar about it afterwards...

Wow! You can't escape the fact that this movie pushes the limits of disturbing art! Many will call it sick. I suspect the point of this film is more about the depravity and dehumanization of fascism, political corruption, totalitarianism, and morality. I have not read the Marquis de Sade's work on which this film was based.

**It isn't possible to "un-see" a film, so be prepared if you choose the experience.** It was described to me as "horror" before I watched it, and I'm not sure it truly captures the film's genre. I can't think of a film genre that adequately describes it.

I will probably never watch it again or forget the images it seared on my brain. But I was challenged to think about various political and societal themes that are still very relevant today.