Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Actors: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Marco Bellocchio
Studio: Criterion Collection
Category: DVD
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $25.26
You Save: $14.69 (37%)
New (37) Used (9) from $23.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  204 reviews
Sales Rank: 2730
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Subtitled), Italian (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 2
Running Time: 116
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.6 x 0.9
MPN: 1764
UPC: 715515031028
EAN: 0715515031028
ASIN: B0019X3ZZY
Theatrical Release Date: 1975
Release Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Five Star Seller!!! New, factory sealed US Region 1 DVD. Item is 100% guaranteed not to be a bootleg or import. Item is shipped directly from our warehouse. Easy exchange if item defective or damaged in shipped.
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Product Description
Pier Paolo Pasolini s notorious final film, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker s transposition of the Marquis de Sade s 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
The End of Salo, a 40-minute documentary about the film s final scene
Salo: Yesterday and Today, a 35-minute documentary featuring interviews with Pier Paolo Pasolini, actor-filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette, and Pasolini s friend Nineto Davoli
Fade to Black, a new short documentary about Salo, featuring interviews with filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, and John Maybury
New interviews with set designer Dante Ferretti and filmmaker/film scholar Jean-Pierre Gorin
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
Theatrical trailer
Optional English subtitles
PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by Neil Bartlett, Roberto Chiesi, Naomi Greene, Gary Indiana, and Sam Rohdie, and excerpts from Gideon Bachman s on-set diary
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| Customer Reviews: Read 199 more reviews...
 Absolute Darkness November 15, 2008
"Salo or 120 Days of Sodom" (1975) by Pier Paolo Pasolini is the film the completely lives up to its reputation of one of or even THE most disturbing, depressing, cruel, and unwatchable ever made. I had to fast forward some of the scenes and turned from the screen during the others. It is not surprising because Pasolini had adapted to the screen the most notorious and IMO unreadable novel by Marquise De Sade and updated it from 18th Century France to 1944 Fascist's Italy to so called Republic of Salo where Mussolini had his last residence. I could not finish the novel. I stopped after 40 pages or so because it is not the novel really rather a catalog of disgusting. The main four characters have been introduced in the beginning as the fully developed monsters. Their victims just stayed that - the victims. There is no plot, no intrigue, and no development, just the endless loop of rapes, tortures, and murders. Yes, I understand that it is a satire and the absolute power corrupts absolutely but reading the book was a torture of boredom. As for Pasolini's work, I've loved and admired every one of his films I've seen before I decided to see Salo. Controversial, unpredictable, a true poet of cinema, his films are among my favorites, they talk to me like not many do. I finished watching "Salo or 120 Days of Sodom", all of it, including the tragic devastating final part, and I have not formed the final opinion on it. It is not the film to enjoy, it is a beautifully photographed by great Tonino Delli Colli, dressed by Danilo Donati, with Production design by Dante Ferretti, set on piano music by Frederic Chopin, "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orf, and original score by Ennio Morricone, journey to hell, to its most horrifying circles, and there is no Virgil to guide us there. Is it a masterpiece as some of the critics and viewers suggest or the failure that forgot what it wanted to say by showing the scene after scene of unthinkable tortures, humiliations and degradations that so called humans (or the creatures that look like humans but are worse than animals because animals don't torture for pleasure) inflict on the helpless and innocent victims? I don't know but it is unforgettable whether you like it or not and it was made by a brilliant master of cinema.
It is truly one of its kind films, and sometimes I think it is great, but more often - why Pasolini made it? As far as violence and disgusting content go, there are hundreds of films that have outdone Salo by the mile but nothing can beat it by its emotional impact, nothing can compare in the exploration of depths of inhumanity so called humans who are in reality the monsters in human shape are capable of. Pasolini said he wanted to make a movie with no hope - Salo it is. There is no hope, no single ray of light, no hint of optimism, only absolute darkness, and that perhaps disturbs and depresses the viewers so much. I still hear the cry of one of the girls-victims in the end of the film, "Why did God abandon us?!!" In the world where God turned his face away from His creatures, horror and degradation of these proportions are possible, and they may and do repeat over and over again in different periods of time, in different countries and continents.
Pasolini's last film is not the one I will ever want to see again but I believe it should be seen at least once by any thinking viewer.
Side of humanity one does not want to see November 13, 2008
This surely is the masterpiece in a sense that I have not seen any work of art in the past like this one. It does not mean that it is pretty, or socially acceptable, or humane - on the contrary, film shows the sides of humanity one would rather choose to ignore or not know about altogether. We see four middle aged men along with the four middle aged women arrange for the time and place to exlore limits of human sexuality in the secluded italian castle. Considering troubling context of the movie, director places these events and its unfortunate protagonists in 1944-1945 period. It is end of the World War II, fascism is falling apart. Like most deaths, this sort of death raises strange reactions in people affected by it. Women I mentioned are engaged to be a storytellers (One of them is a musician), while men choose to engage in their desires that have no limits. I would say that film is divided into three parts: obsession, that leads to degradation and submission of the other human beings and finally masochism that ends in mass murder. There were moments when film was very difficult to watch. But like most totalitarian societies, this one finds its way to justify actions incomprehensible to most ordinary people.
 Sick, disgusting, make me puke, strongly NOT RECOMMENDED at all cost November 7, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This movie is the most sickening,disgusting, ugliest movie I have ever seen in my life. DO NOT LET your children watch this movie. I bought this movie and watch it, after that I threw it in the trash right away. This movie is not for everybody, especially those sensitive ones. It is SICK and I don't recommend at all cost.
Very Sickening! October 30, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
I rented Salo after reading the reviews on both Netflix and Amazon.com. I thought I was getting a visually stunning, mind opening, erotic masterpiece. What I saw was one of the most disturbing moves ever made. It is sick, twisted and demented to say the least. There is nothing erotic about this movie at all; there is nothing beautiful about this movie at all. I do not believe in censorship and anyone has the right to make a movie on any subject but I do have the right to say this is just not for me and I personally found Salo sickening. I would not recommend this movie to anyone and in fact warned my wife not to watch it because I knew it would make her ill. Please be aware of what you are getting if you buy or rent this movie. I will add my very short synopsis of the movie, a bunch or sick freaks, kidnap and torture some poor young people, with some rape, and murder thrown in.
 Anti-Pornography October 24, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Salo is the most repulsive depiction of moral depravity and cruelty I have ever seen put to film. It's as violent and disgusting as you can imagine, as acts of pure evil are depicted in stark realism before your eyes. This is what it means to lose all semblance of humanity and become an agent of evil. Pasolini has decided to show this in horrid detail. It is a heinous film.
As disgusted as I am with the hypocrisy of the world, and how naive people are to the malevolence that lives in so many people's hearts, I am divided as to whether a film such as Salo helps matters any. Watching it, one cannot help but feel voyeuristic in these horrendous crimes and I believe it was part of Pasolini's sick joke to "deflower" the audience. I am of the opinion that crimes such as these are within the realm of possibility for nearly any human being -- and that the first step towards them is breaking down the inherent, civilized revulsion we have toward such things. Yet I also do not think that Salo is in any way titillating -- if anything it is a very stark, brutal film that will have the opposite affect on most of the audience; with the sanitization of pornography and violence in or culture as of 2008, Salo perhaps has merit as depicting where all of this can ultimately lead us.
I just cannot bring myself to give it a higher rating.
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