Reviews

These are the late 60's and the early 70's as I have always imagined. As usual Antonioni uses all the registers of communications: the sounds, the colours, the movements of the actors. You could say that the plot is not well balanced, that the dialogues are often silly and meaningless, and maybe you are right. But Antonioni is a master in evoking feelings, simple, rough feelings, using all the tools a filmmaker has.

The movie has some jewels, and among them the most shining are the 10 final minutes. The oneiric explosion sequence, with the music that comes and goes, with the time expanded and slowed down, with the kitsch colours of meaningless objects moving upward in the blue sky. In the movie history this is one of the best images of the explosive and destructive power of the ingenuity of that generation, that wanted to live changing the existing rules. Playing with colour, time, sounds and music Antonioni has given once more a proof of his unforgettable art: he is at the same time a painter, a music composer, a dancer, a poet.

I was 8 years old when Pasolini was killed, some months after having finished Salò. I still remember the atmosphere in Italy. In the middle of 70's there were two Italy: one was conservative, it was represented by Democrazia Cristiana, the party that was governing since 1948, and it was based on catholic religion. On the opposite side the left hand side of society, represented by communist party with its two souls (workers and intellectual) was becoming stronger and stronger. In the background of this dispute there was terrorism and the first economical crisis after II world war.

This is definitely a political movie. It shows the horrors of the present society, being a metaphor of the inhumanity of the (political) power. Anarchy against democracy. It is also an intellectual movie, where everything is shown to make the viewer think to something else.

Today, late 1999, movies as this one are almost disappeared, and we movie-addicted, are not anymore used in this kind of experience.

Our society has been becoming more standardised, and all the "different voices" are not anymore heard. Today Pasolini is sadly almost forgotten, as other filmmakers of the 70's, and Salò is a ghost-movie in our society. As other masterpieces of the 70's.

We have to fight the lost of memory imposed by our present society, and looking at this horrible, disgusting, shocking masterpiece can be a reaction. We have to start to think again.