Movie #1: Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

Ever since I found out about "Salò" being called one of the most disturbing films in existence, it became my white whale, a 24fps car accident I couldn't look away from. The Criterion Collection offered it very early in their run, but after the rights expired it went out of print. Copies on ebay and Amazon ran into the hundreds and my interest skyrocketed. Thankfully (?), it's been re-issued on Blu-Ray and thanks to some joker in Barnes & Noble corporate, it was prominently displayed in the New Releases section years after it's re-release. But it sat on my shelf unwatched, never finding the right time to screen it. I told myself I'd have to get wasted first, in order to "get through it".
Having watched it sober, that wouldn't have helped one iota.

The film depicts four months of a graphic, gag-inducing death orgy, set up by four powerful Italian fascists in 1943, structured through four distinct segments (perhaps a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). They round up the best-looking teenagers in town, hold them up in a well-staffed and armed mansion and lay out the rules: they are "beyond any reach of legality" and begin to...well, this is where some would put a spoiler warning. But there's no real plot to spoil. Pretty much every twisted urge and whim these sick bastards think of are met without real conflict. Each segment begins with a woman spinning tales of sexual fantasies scored to live piano (and later accordion) music. Then the Four Fascists force their hostages into torture, sodomy and the most elegant depiction of coprophagia you'll ever see. Those who resist and break the rules have their names written down in "the punishment book". The lucky ones are shot.

It's a disgusting movie but one has to admire the craft that went into making it. From the fearless actors who frequently appear naked to the filmmaker's devotion to the subject matter, not hiding the horrors through long shots but forcing you to be an observer in the nightmare. In a scene after the "Circle of Shit" title card (after which I jotted "oh fuck" into my notes), the camera frames the main course with the composition and lighting of an Applebee's commercial. When the final scene does choose to depict the apex of violence and torture through binocular lenses, finally giving us some distance from the action, it's a relief but not without cost. We now see the world through the villain's perspective, having completed our evolution from observer into willing participant. As one of ringleaders comments during a break, "nothing is more contagious than evil."

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch reruns of "Parks & Rec" in hopes of tricking my brain into never thinking of dough-balls with nails inside ever again...