Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975)

Salò or the 120 days of Sodom, takes place in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist state founded in the Nazi-occupied part of Italy in 1944. The plot is divided in four parts parallel to Dante's Inferno: Anteinferno, Circle of Manias, Circle of Feces, and the Circle of Blood.

Four powerful men, a Duke, a Bishop, a Magistrate, and a President agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a perverted ceremony. Assisted by several collaborators, they abduct eighteen youngsters (nine young men and nine young women). They subsequently take them to a palace near Marzabotto. Four middle-aged prostitutes who are also collaborators accompany the group. Their function in the debauchery will be to narrate arousing stories for the men of power who will subsequently sadistically exploit their victims.

The story depicts the many days at the palace, during which the four men of power devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. A most infamous scene, shows a young woman forced to eat the feces of the Duke; later, the other victims are presented a giant meal of human feces. At story's end, the victims who chose to not collaborate with their fascist tormentors are gruesomely murdered: scalping, branding, tongue and eyes cut out; (see Franco Merli). The viewer is distanced from the grossest tortures, because they are viewed through binoculars. The story's final scene — two young, macho soldiers dancing a waltz, together — embodies Pasolini's vision of life and death: unflinching, dispassionate, yet, humane and (paradoxically) impassioned.