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Salo; 120 Days of Sodom
Review by Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
For a more detailed review of the storyline and the
metaphor behind that storyline, please read Mike Bracken’s excellent
review on this film:
http://www.flipsidemovies.com/salo.html
Note: This film is not available on Netflix.com, but copies can be had
fairly inexpensively on eBay and elsewhere.
Salo; 120 Days of Sodom, is director Pier Paolo Pasolini
adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's 18th-century novel (Keeping in mind
that "Sodom" refers to sodomy et al). Pasolini transplanted the setting
to Mussolini's post-Nazi-fascist state of Salo, but states in his
commentary prior to the film that he stayed very closely to the novel
itself. Salo is meant to be an unflinching look at the horrors
committed by totalitarian regimes and their dehumanizing abuse of power,
and the director was roundly criticized for this film by people who did
not understand the metaphor of what he was trying to portray. He was
murdered very soon after it came out in an unrelated incident.
BDSM aficionados may be attracted to this film because of the De Sade
connection but they are likely to be somewhat disappointed for a number
of reasons, depending on their predilections. A key thing to know about
this film is that this is NOT a BDSM community film in that the S&M is
not consensual. The Submissives were kidnapped and held against their
will, and those who escaped were killed. In fact, many of them were
tortured rather gruesomely at the end and also killed, so this film is
not for the fainthearted.
The downside first. This film was made in Italy in 1976, so it is not
only subtitled (which doesn’t really matter if you’re watching it for
the kink) but also has the slower – much slower – style of both the
Italian way of directing as well as the 1970’s. It is nearly two hours
long, with a strong philosophical bent with our protagonists (Nazi’s)
conversing at length about the relationship between power, sex, and
politics. There are also long storytelling periods that prelude each set
of both regular sex and mildly kinky scenes. There are some other
peculiarities such as that with complete frontal nudity and sex of every
possible persuasion, there is almost no soundtrack for the actual
participants – mostly silence. Finally, the film itself has both
continuity and content issues in the sense that the characters say
things like they will kill anyone who has heterosexual sex or who speaks
of God, but when these things happen, no one actually is killed for
their transgressions. I suspect the text was cut down so much from the
book that some things lost their sensibilities.
The film style is not as explicit as we are used to today, but it is
clear that the sex is real which is enjoyable in itself. The men are all
uncircumcised, as reflects Italy of that time period, and perhaps even
now. Because the majority of the film is made up of the story and many
of us may rent it for the kinky scenes, I’ve listed some of the more
interesting ones here:
46 minutes – Pissing scene fully dressed (mild)
49 – Great scene of all the Submissives as dogs on leashes and being
forced to beg for food
50 – hard whipping of a Submissive trying to run away from the
Dominant
50 – Submissive eats food with nails and bleeds from the mouth
102 – Male Dominant forces Female Submissive to eat excrement
110 – Wedding feast eating excrement
115 – Female Submissive urinates on Male Dominant’s face
118 – Contest for best derriere on the Submissives – the winner
dies!
143 – Very quick vignettes of penis & nipple torture with fire
145 – Quick vignettes of other gruesome torture pre killing
147 – Male Dominant fists Female Submissive then anal fucks her
147 – Scalping of Female Submissive
150 – Branding of Male Submissive’s nipple
And now, for a little humor regarding these issues...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of Spiritual Transformation through
BDSM; Stories and Submissions from Fellow Travelers. Read an excerpt
and more at Sadie's Kinky Goodies
http://www.sensuoussadie.com/sadieskinkygoodies.htm. She is the
founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM
group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for
reprinting can be addressed to her at
SensuousSadie@aol.com or
visit her website at
http://www.sensuoussadie.com/. Sadie believes the universe is
abundant, and that sharing information freely is part of this abundance,
so she allows reprints of her writing in most venues.
Copyright 2007 Sadie Sez Publications
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