First of all, this movie has more plot and more skillful development than most people tend to talk about, because most people tend to be struck by its hardest parts--which is the point. It's important when taking on a work like this that the intent isn't just to shock, but to shock for a reason, and that reason has to be backed up by a structural logic that Pasolini was obviously aware of.
I didn't like it, but not because of how disturbing it was. I just think that fascists did enough real life evil that we hardly have use for such over-the-top "allegories", as it were. On the other hand, if absolute power corrupts absolutely, it is interesting to see someone pointing out how that extends to joyless sexual deviency as well. So my feelings are mixed.
I'm a general fan of what some call "abject art" (a term I rather like and find very appropriate), which seeks to engage or compel an audience's negative reactions instead of positive ones. In the case of Salo, you are supposed to feel revulsion, not just intellectually, but physically, so that fascism and other forms of absolutist power is met in the audience with visceral revulsion, A Clockwork Orange style. Only nobody is holding your eyes open and there are no chemicals involved (unless you were the one to take them, at which case you've probably lost your mind by now and wouldn't be reading this), so in order to operate, Pasolini has to keep your attention and trigger your attention. I feel he successfully managed that for the most part, though to be perfectly honest, all those storytelling moments began to run into each other and drag.
I also don't feel like all parts of the allegory were well developed. I understand that he intended for the cropophagia, for instance, to refer to fast food industries, but there was no other evidence that would lead to that association within the text--we have to turn to what Pasolini himself said about the movie in order to understand it, and that's not good film-making.
Overall, the best aspect of it all told is the fact that somebody actually took a Marquis de Sade work and turned it into something just as loaded, just as controversial, and just as tasteless, unlike other de Sade adaptations (like Quills, which shows his life and parts of his work, but only the fun parts; or Lunacy, which mixes it with Edgar Allen Poe and Svankmajer's usual Gothic hilarity, making it all just fun absurdism and neglecting some of the straighter-faced harder-to-swallow bits).
--PolarisDiB
I didn't like it, but not because of how disturbing it was. I just think that fascists did enough real life evil that we hardly have use for such over-the-top "allegories", as it were. On the other hand, if absolute power corrupts absolutely, it is interesting to see someone pointing out how that extends to joyless sexual deviency as well. So my feelings are mixed.
I'm a general fan of what some call "abject art" (a term I rather like and find very appropriate), which seeks to engage or compel an audience's negative reactions instead of positive ones. In the case of Salo, you are supposed to feel revulsion, not just intellectually, but physically, so that fascism and other forms of absolutist power is met in the audience with visceral revulsion, A Clockwork Orange style. Only nobody is holding your eyes open and there are no chemicals involved (unless you were the one to take them, at which case you've probably lost your mind by now and wouldn't be reading this), so in order to operate, Pasolini has to keep your attention and trigger your attention. I feel he successfully managed that for the most part, though to be perfectly honest, all those storytelling moments began to run into each other and drag.
I also don't feel like all parts of the allegory were well developed. I understand that he intended for the cropophagia, for instance, to refer to fast food industries, but there was no other evidence that would lead to that association within the text--we have to turn to what Pasolini himself said about the movie in order to understand it, and that's not good film-making.
Overall, the best aspect of it all told is the fact that somebody actually took a Marquis de Sade work and turned it into something just as loaded, just as controversial, and just as tasteless, unlike other de Sade adaptations (like Quills, which shows his life and parts of his work, but only the fun parts; or Lunacy, which mixes it with Edgar Allen Poe and Svankmajer's usual Gothic hilarity, making it all just fun absurdism and neglecting some of the straighter-faced harder-to-swallow bits).
--PolarisDiB