Salo: The Art of Depravity
Salo is one of the most notorious films ever made. When a film reaches that level of infamy, it can be difficult to stand back and see it from a neutral perspective. The film has achieved a cult status over the years. It has attracted the adoration of multiple filmmakers I admire, such as John Waters, Michael Haneke, and Gasper Noe. I can’t talk about the film without delving into its creator, filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. He was a polarizing figure in his day and continues to divide audiences. Before he was a director Pasolini had written several books of poetry and a novel.
Pasolini was born in Bologna in 1922, a city considered one of the more leftist in Italy. I usually don’t get into politics in these film essays, but it is an essential component of Salo and Pasolini. The perils of fascism would follow Pasolini throughout his life. In 1926, His father Carlo Alberto foiled a would-be assassination of Benito Mussolini. From that, it is clear that his father had a far more positive outlook on fascism than Pasolini. Under different circumstances, he could have easily been indoctrinated into believing in Fascism as his father did. 1945 was a pivotal year for Pasolini, one that would echo across the rest of his years. This was when his brother Guido was killed by Italian Communist Partisans.
For many people, a trauma like that would push you as far away from Communism as possible. I wouldn’t be able to fathom aligning myself with the ideology that killed my sibling. Pasolini ended up being drawn to Communism, though his views on it often clashed with other Communists and Marxists of the era. Before he got into filmmaking, he started out writing dialogue for two Fellini films, Nights in Cabiria and La Dolce Vita. He was establishing his voice as one who can elevate fantastical tales with grounded narratives. He would incorporate these ideas into his future work.
Like all humans, Pasolini’s views were complicated and sometimes contradictory. Despite being a Communist and an outspoken atheist, he made what is considered to be one of the greatest and most accurate film portrayals of Jesus, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, in 1964. He envisioned Jesus as a brilliant Marxist-inspired revolutionary and considered casting Allen Ginsburg or Jack Kerouac. Even the Catholic Church praised the film, which is rather surprising considering Pasolini was a homosexual atheist. Perhaps his distance from the material gave him the ability to craft the film in a more objective way and focus on showing the incredible empathy Jesus had for the less fortunate.
Before Salo, Pasolini made The Trilogy of Life. This consisted of The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and Arabian Nights. These films were a celebration of personal freedoms and sexuality. There was a certain degree of lightness and jubilation to them, a stark contrast to the darkness of Salo. Not long after the release of the trilogy, Pasolini grew disillusioned with the state of the world and where mankind was heading. The optimism of the Trilogy Of Life now left a sour taste in his mouth. This is what led to the creation of the Trilogy Of Death. Salo was the first and only film in this series.
All that background information is to help frame Salo and its origins. It is not necessary to research Pasolini and the politics of the time to appreciate the film, but it will give you a greater understanding. The story of the film is not a complicated one to describe. It is a loose adaptation of the Marquis De Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom. Towards the end of WW2, an ensemble of fascist Italian libertines kidnaps a group of adolescent boys and girls and subjects them to 120 days of horrific physical, mental, and sexual torture. Many see Salo as a simple anti-fascist tale. That is certainly an aspect of the film, but it goes far deeper than that. He was also critical of the rise of consumerism in the west and how it eviscerates provincial cultures. In one of his last interviews before his death, Pasolini said “I consider consumerism to be a Fascism worse than the classical one, because clerical Fascism didn’t really transform Italians, didn’t enter into them. It was a totalitarian state but not a totalizing one.”
The libertines are shown as opulent members of high-life society. They dress in formal attire, discuss intellectual topics, and torment the kids in a grand mansion. In this way, Pasolini visualizes his disdain for a superficial consumerist world that devours people and their cultural and individual identities. Most of the boys and girls in the film are not named. The film goes out of its way to dehumanize them as the libertines do. Many filmmakers would put the focus on the victims and their struggles. In that version of the film, we would show the kids bonding over their shared pain and forming friendships. They would find ways to deal with their anguish through multiple scenes showing their growing friendships.
That is not the way Salo treats them. We are kept far away from these kids. Their only interactions with each other are when their tormenters are present. This gives the viewer no safe haven from the atrocities. The film puts more focus on the libertines, who are referred to by their titles. There is The President, The Duke, The Bishop, and The Magistrate. This disconnect from all the characters is a way to turn the audience into a willing sociopathic voyeur. The further you get in the film, you become a detached witness. There are no characters and relationships to connect to. If you think a great film must follow the teachings of Save The Cat and adhere to passing the Bechdel Test, then Salo is not for you. None of the main characters learn anything by the end. They don’t have any hint of a traditional arc and most of the dialogue spoken by women is via four older prostitutes hired by the libertines. They egg on the atrocities and regale the men with tales of their twisted sexual fetishes and erotic escapades with older guys throughout the years.
The film lulls you into a false sense of security in the opening credits. Ennio Morricone’s music here sounds like the kind of tune that aristocrats would dance to in their high society ballrooms. I can imagine the libertines in the film listening to music exactly like this to relax in between torture sessions. Morricone’s music later morphs and becomes more somber and mournful. There is a haunting use of sparse piano. These parts of the score remind me of some of Bernard Herrmann’s later work. The score in Salo stands back and frames the narrative rather than trying to force emotions on the audience. It knows that the horrors happening on the screen do not need to be manipulated with music to be soul-scarring.
There are only two side characters that are given a glimmer of development. A pianist who says nothing the entire film and one of the female victims. Her mother was slain before she was taken to the mansion. Her scenes of torture are among the most uncomfortable since the film paints a portrait of who she is, more so than the others. Salo is about absolute power and how it can twist people and be abused, no matter what your ideology and political affiliation. Or, as Pasolini puts it, Salo is a film on “The true anarchy. The anarchy of power.” There are certainly much more gruesome films out there. I have seen a fair share of them. Shock for the sake of it is usually boring. What makes Salo such an unrelentingly brutal film is how hopeless and bleak it feels. It is a grim display of humanity at its worst. Pasolini himself said this about the barbarism in Salo, “In this film, sex is nothing but allegory, the metaphor for the commodification of bodies subjected to power. I think that consumerism manipulates and violates bodies neither more nor less than Nazism. My film shows the sinister connection between consumerism and Nazism”
Pasolini was discovered murdered on Nov 2nd, 1975. His body was found on a beach in Ostia. He had been run over multiple times by his own car. There was evidence of physical trauma and an autopsy revealed his body had been partially burned with gasoline after death. A 17-year-old boy, Giuseppe Pelosi, was caught driving Pasolini’s car. He confessed to the murder and was convicted in 1976, along with “unknown others”, but this phrase was eventually removed from the verdict. Many at the time viewed the murder as a Mafia killing, due to how calculated it was. On May 7th, 2005, Pelosi retracted his confession. He claimed it was made under threat of violence to his family. According to him, the actual killers were three men with southern accents.
There is also a theory that he was killed by an extortionist. Pasolini’s friend Sergio Citti testified that several rolls of film from Salo were stolen. Allegedly, Pasolini was going to meet with this extortionist to get the reels back. Citti’s investigation in 2005 found new evidence, including a bloody wooden stick and an eyewitness who claimed they saw a group of men pull Pasolini from a car. Police in Rome reopened the case after this, but the judge overseeing the investigation decided there was not enough evidence to justify a continued inquiry. Salo was intended to be the beginning of his Trilogy Of Death. Instead, it was his final film.
There were only a few people in the theater I went to. Usually after a seeing a movie there are smatterings of conversations among the audience about the film they just saw. People debate whether they liked it, their favorite scenes, etc. When Salo ended, there was no sound from anybody. People filed out of the theater like they were leaving a funeral. It took me a few days to process the film enough to write this piece about it. There will certainly be those who get nothing from Salo. They may dismiss it as superficial shock and think my reaction is melodramatic. If you are uncomfortable with the prospect of watching it, I’m not going to try and change your mind. Salo is an arduous journey, but a brilliant one worth taking for those who can handle it.
