Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom
Pier Paolo Pasolini's final film works on two distinct planes: one of stringent revulsion and one of cerebral exercise. These layers are not mutually exclusive, however. Pasolini utilizes intellectual and gut reactions and the locus of these two factors to accomplish very personal goals: decrying his country's submission to Nazi fascism and lamenting the subsequent decay of present humanity. Dante's Divine Comedy, the Marquis de Sade's Les 120 Journees de Sodome, Nietzsche's "superman" philosophy and, finally, the realist and nonrealist movements are the primary tools with which he constructs his cinematic rebuke, message, and most, importantly, warning.
Pasolini employs Sade's hedonistic blueprint with an obvious rigor complemented with a more subtle interpretation and expansion of Sadean ideals. Most obvious of all is the "format" which stimulates the events in the mansion. The "rules" the four masters (the Duke, Bishop, Excellency and President) enforce are Pasolini's method of drawing out Sadean depravities: any heterosexual or "normal" sexual activity is punishable by the loss of a limb, and those caught in any religious act will be condemned to death. The Sadean format is most recognizably represented in the arrangement of the inhabitants of the household. There are four maids, four masters, eight boys, eight girls, and a "storyteller" (Sig, Vacarri) to conjure sexual potency and imagination. In particular, the stories dispatched by Vacarri are often identical to those in de Sade's 120 Journees de Sodome. This situation (right down to the numbers of participants) is congruous to that of Sade's sexually charged Bastille. Finally, the film is quartered into "circles"; as is the work of de Sade: the "antiferno" (first segment), the "circle of obsessions" (or "circle of manias"-the second segment), the "circle of shit" (the penultimate segment) and, finally, the "circle of blood."
Far more fascinating are Pasolini's expansion and metamorphoses of Sadean tradition. Pasolini portrays the sexual act as one of utter domination and the triumph of one human over another. Dehumanizing acts, such as walking the captives like dogs, clearly confirm a master/servant relationship. The masters admit that "to deflower is to destroy." Such agonizing acts are book ended by Sig. Vacarri's anecdotes, providing a potent sexual stimulus. Vacarri speaks of a man who admitted to her that sex "is my passion, child. I've no others." This quote speaks volumes of a defining trait in Pasolini's film: sex is both a maddening obsession and an instrument of power. Sex is the gateway to absolute control and domination.
Traces of Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy, most specifically the third and final act, "The Inferno," are also found in an already ambitiously homogenous cinematic allegory. The most obvious layer of Dante's influence is again in the film's "circles." Just as Dante progressively penetrated the bowels of hell through consecutive circles showcasing various tortured souls and punishments, the sixteen captives descend to the utmost pits of hellish despair. The opening act, or the "antiferno," is an effective "quiet before the storm," where the sixteen girls and boys are captured and have yet to enter the debauched domain; this is very similar to Dante's hell-bound traveler's initial impediment before his descent. The four masters can be seen as sinners in the biblical sense, as they possess great opulence (the master's mansion a modern Tower of Babel), which contributes to their spiritual corruption. This wealth and independence beget idleness and scorned from the eyes of god.
But Pasolini warps Dante's (and, for that matter, western religion's) cause/effect relationship of earthly sin vs. godly punishment. Pasolini's anti-heroes are not punished, either by judges or by the hands of god, in the film's conclusion. The film concludes with the torture and slaughter of the boys and girls who resisted the "rules," and the masters are not persecuted. In fact, considering the lack of consequence one is led to believe that the process of capture and torture will begin anew. In short, the film prophesies that it will ultimately end where it began, revealing a cyclical, infinite nature similar to that of the eternal damnation of hell. Thus Pasolini suggests a disagreement with Dante's theory and leans toward the didactic (the idea that one can redeem oneself through the trials of "Purgatory" which lead to the eventual admittance to heaven). Both Pasolini and Dante seem to agree, however, on the function of literary (and cinematic) appreciation: it is a three-tiered system, with the lowest tier being a gut reaction, the second a basic understanding of the events in the work, and the highest tier being that of a more intellectual knowledge of the text, most definitely attained through rigorous academic training. The lowest tier of SALO would be the immediate gut reaction that one would inevitably feel during one of the many squeamish sequences. The second tier would be a comprehensive attainment of the plot (the capture and torture of the sixteen adolescents by the four Fascists). The third tier would be the more abstract interpretations of the rampant symbolism and literary traditions inherent in the film. Pasolini's most brilliant addition to Dante's belief of literary appreciation and understanding is the visceral factor of the film, a sort of intestinal litmus test that every viewer must pass at least once to fully unlock and appreciate the film.
By disallowing the ideal of godly punishment and instead inserting an environment without consequence, Nietzsche (whom many historians believe was influenced by Sade), with his concept of the "superman" in such works as Thus Spoke Zarathustra, appears, at least in theory, in SALO. The idea of the "superman"-that a man can do no wrong and that one's own will is supreme and absolute directly applies to the supreme law of the masters. Their rules are the rules, and their establishment is beyond the reach of worldly jurisdiction. The duke once remarks "The principle of all greatness on earth has long been totally bathed in blood." So it appears that Machiavellian ethics are also in attendance. Fascism, seen here as a sort of outgrowth of Nietzsche's ethics, is seen by the masters as a way of keeping equality at bay. To achieve human equality is to deny the pleasure of ruling over another. The duke admits that "It's seeing those who don't enjoy what I do and who suffer the worst that provides the fascination of telling oneself I'm happier than that scum they call the people."
Despite the film's obvious literary heritage, Pasolini sports more than a few wholly original elements of his own to achieve his expression. Pasolini transforms the often-intangible notion of realism and molds it to his own self-expressed "certain realism." He shows the most vile, shocking and reprehensible acts with an unblinking eye, and does not mollify the shocks with intentional humor or unrealistic portrayals of death. In effect, the treatment of such heinous acts in so sobering a manner portrays, despite itself, an almost surreal experience. Such scenes as the "wedding celebration," where the captives' feces are wheeled out in a steaming pot, ready for consumption, are shown so matter-of-factly that the effect is undeniably unreal.
The fascination with scatology, regardless of all the repugnantly graphic details, serves an integral argument for Pasolini's regard for realist/non realist politics. By being ordered to eat their own excrement, the captives are closing a loop of isolation. They are so profoundly isolated they are not even allowed to eat food outside of their own body and must subsist on the product of their bodies. The place where those bodies are housed, the mansion, is also a representation of the realist (or, in this case, non-realist) school of thought. By being sealed from the outside world, the captives soon take this life as the only truth. Their past is not a concern. The future is uncertain. Only the present life in the mansion is for certain. Thus, a new "reality" has been initiated, a miasma of absolute pleasure and painful dominance. Finally, the captors themselves revel in a fragmented reality, cutting their ties to their own past. The duke openly admits his joy in killing his mother, both severing his familial ties and more severely confining his existence beyond the mansion. Similarly, the duke takes great pleasure in his vitriolic diatribe on a female captive, who is weeping for her deceased mother, whom she failed to save from drowning prior to her capture. Again visages of Dante come into focus, as the lost souls of Dante's inferno lie in eternal punishment of being denied the knowledge of their past.
It is most appropriate, then, for the final torture of the captives in the "circle of blood" to be silent. The entire climactic torture sequence of the captives who defied the "rules" is entirely devoid of sound. The captives, long inured to a spurious and malignant setting, have discarded all liberties of the flesh, including speech and protest. The final shackles are locked when the masters sever the tongue of a captive. The victims have now been raped of their speech and protest both physically and in spirit. The masters also take turns watching the bloodshed through binoculars. This is the ultimate triumph of master over slave; the masters possess the will to view their torture and have complete control over their specimens. Most upsetting of all, however, is the gleeful subordination of a once vivacious boy to his ultimate master. "Good, you were ready," says the Duke, regarding the boy's erection. The boy has transcended the role of sexual participant and has entered the territory of a nihilistic sexual soldier, eveready to perform.
Perhaps the most evident function of Pasolini's realist/non realist flirtations is that of the utmost hatred and disregard for the church. A nonbeliever in his country's Catholic faith since adolescence, Pasolini assassinates not only religious archetypes such as moral redemption, but also those of a benevolent, magnanimous god. The captives, entombed in their perpetual exposure to a "new realism" of sadism and debauchery, hopelessly cry out to their moribund savior: "Why have you abandoned us?" In SALO, religion is not only purveyed as an anemic cheat, but simply another "other world" value that does not fit in this "other reality." Faith is further dissolved into nihilism by the caustic repercussions of the "non realist" catalyst when two female captives-Eva and Antinisca- are found engaging in a lesbian act, most classically scorned by their former God's eye.
Undoubtedly, the most autobiographical element of the film (straddling his contempt for the church and his denouncement of Fascism, revealing his Marxist beliefs) is that of Pasolini's homosexuality. The "house rules" confine carnal interactions to same sex affairs or even more experimental acts. While this insistence on barring intercourse or "normal sex" further supports the argument of Pasolini's going against the grain (and thus defying the so-called natural order of the "real" world), it also allows Pasolini to purge himself of his own festering Catholic guilt (still quite omnipresent in his psyche, despite his abandonment of the religion early on in his life) concerning his sexuality. It could be said that Pasolini's final film is a sort of sexual catharsis, putting teeth into the sexual encounters.
SALO represents the culmination not only of a career, but of a lifetime. It only seems logical that a film of this obsessive intensity could not be superannuated. Nor could it be bettered. SALO brings Pasolini's intellectual fetishes and obsessions so fittingly full circle. Encapsulated within two hours of celluloid is a lifetime of protest, anger, and wonder; a resume´ recapitulating his distrust of the church, his Marxist leanings, his shame at his own country relegated to a Fascist puppet state, his measured deliberation of the merits of the realist and nonrealist movements, his sexuality, and his ultimate tribute to his literary pedigree.
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