Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 9: Tue Jan 9

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pasolini, 1975): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.35pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the 'Scala: Sex, drugs and rock and roll cinema' season at BFI Southbank and is introduced by season curator Jason Wood. The movie also screens on January 23rd. Full details here.

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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