‘Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom’ Is So Much More Than Shock Horror
Pier Paolo Pasolini’sfascist parable retools theMarquis de Sade’sextreme avant-garde text and relocates the horror to Nazi-occupied Italy in 1944. Few films have generated the kind of controversySalò, or the 120 Days of Sodomhas over the years. The premise involves The Libertines, a cabal of despots who round up a group of teenagers, forcing them to participate in stomach-churning acts of degradation and depravity.Salòskews so often into bad-taste territory it is easy to overlook the factPasolini had a politically motivated reason for making the filmin the first place....