Pier Paolo Pasolini

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

Salò, o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s controversial version of the Marquis De Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, amplified with motifs from Dante’s Inferno.

Italy-France 1975
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
With Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Hélène Surgère
Running time 117 min
18

Disgusted by the flood of crass sexploitation movies which filled the space opened up by his ‘Trilogy of Life’, Pasolini turned to the most nihilistic thinker in European history for what became his final film. His version of De Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom, amplified with motifs from Dante’s Inferno, confronts the ultimate implications of fascism in a series of sexual and moral atrocities.