An incredible indictment of modern corporate fascism as it so blatantly rules in our modern age. Essential viewing!
I watched Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom because it's one of those films people insist stays with you forever. This is not the experience I found, though. Instead, I was left wondering whether I was watching cinema at all. Pier Paolo Pasolini's political intentions are easy enough to recognize, but I never found them effective. Turning fascists into vessels for increasingly unoriginal acts of depravity eventually stopped feeling like satire and started feeling like propaganda. For me, that undercut the film's message rather than strengthened it. When every new scene exists to prove the same point in a more extreme way than the last, outrage eventually gives way to indifference.
Nothing summed this up more than the infamous chapter "Girone della Merda." The film further cements its lack of value by using sexual assault and rape as nothing more than cheap gimmicks to shock viewers. I understood what Pasolini was trying to communicate, but by that point, the escalation had become so relentless that it no longer carried much emotional or intellectual weight for me. I wasn't disturbed nearly as much as I was exhausted by a film that seemed to believe pushing further was the same as saying more. I can appreciate Salò's place in film history and why it continues to provoke discussion decades later. Nonetheless, I think its reputation rests more on endurance than lasting artistic power. For all its notoriety, I found it quite hollow and, perhaps most unexpectedly, easily forgettable. Provocation without persuasion
Well, that's perhaps one of the most disturbing movies I've watched. Was just a bunch of perverted sex fetishes thrown into a movie
The film is bold but it is missing the audience... These could be more interaction between the narrative and audiences. I see a missing opportunity there.
Bizarre, twisted, disgusting with a lot of cringe.
Reviews
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
Garrett Wilkins reviewed
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
July 30, 2026I watched Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom because it's one of those films people insist stays with you forever. This is not the experience I found, though. Instead, I was left wondering whether I was watching cinema at all. Pier Paolo Pasolini's political intentions are easy enough to recognize, but I never found them effective. Turning fascists into vessels for increasingly unoriginal acts of depravity eventually stopped feeling like satire and started feeling like propaganda. For me, that undercut the film's message rather than strengthened it. When every new scene exists to prove the same point in a more extreme way than the last, outrage eventually gives way to indifference.
Nothing summed this up more than the infamous chapter "Girone della Merda." The film further cements its lack of value by using sexual assault and rape as nothing more than cheap gimmicks to shock viewers. I understood what Pasolini was trying to communicate, but by that point, the escalation had become so relentless that it no longer carried much emotional or intellectual weight for me. I wasn't disturbed nearly as much as I was exhausted by a film that seemed to believe pushing further was the same as saying more. I can appreciate Salò's place in film history and why it continues to provoke discussion decades later. Nonetheless, I think its reputation rests more on endurance than lasting artistic power. For all its notoriety, I found it quite hollow and, perhaps most unexpectedly, easily forgettable. Provocation without persuasion
