Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 328: Sun Dec 1

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1975): Prince Charles Cinema, 5.45pm


This is a 35mm presentation. (The perfect way to start the festive season?)

Chicago Reader review:
Pier Paolo Pasolini's last feature (1975) is a shockingly literal and historically questionable transposition of the Marquis de Sade's 
120 Days of Sodom
 to the last days of Italian fascism. Most of the film consists of long shots of torture, though some viewers have been more upset by the bibliography that appears in the credits. Roland Barthes noted that in spite of all its objectionable elements (he pointed out that any film that renders Sade real and fascism unreal is doubly wrong), this film should be defended because it "refuses to allow us to redeem ourselves." It's certainly the film in which Pasolini's protest against the modern world finds its most extreme and anguished expression. Very hard to take, but in its own way an essential work.
Jonathan Rosenbaum


Here (and above) is the trailer.

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