SALO: OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975)

Experimental/Avant Garde Cinema Week Day 5

There are several experimental or avant garde films on the 1001 movie list. In trying to figure out how to deal with them, I decided that the best way for me to handle these often tough nuts to crack is just watch them and try to answer ten basic questions about them on my personally devised standardized test. So let us continue with a most unpleasant viewing experience...

Salo: or the 120 Days of Sodom 

1. What happens?
We witness a series of acts of total depravity perpetrated by libertine fascists during the waning days of World War II.

2. Was it heavy? Did it achieve total heaviosity?
I suppose you could make a case for this movie saying something about how absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I was too busy being repulsed by the whole thing to notice.

3. What was your favorite part?
The opening credits and theme written presumably by the maestro, Ennio Morricone

4. What was your least favorite part?
Everything that occured after the opening credits and theme written presumably by the maestro, Ennio Morricone

5. Did you get it?
No. And if I did, I wouldn't admit it.

6. Might the viewing experience have been enhanced from either prescription or non-prescription medication of some kind?
No...No...and no.

7. What about the sex?
There's plenty, just nothing remotely enjoyable to see.

8. What about the violence?
More than I care to remember.

9. Describe this film in one sentence starting with "This is the film...
This is the film that no matter how one may feel about it, you should really be sickened by it.

10. Would you watch it again?
Only if I'm tied to a chair and my eyes are pried open like Alex in A Clockwork Orange.