Finally got around to watching Saló. Definitely a good film, and what a finale... But I'm not sure if I agree with those calling this a masterpiece. It was interesting to see Pasolini go through more effort in designing his film, the compositions here were much neater than in his other work. This had an interesting ambiguous effect on me. On the one hand, it made most of the atrocities bearable to witness - he also stages a lot in long shots, as opposed to the rough closeness I know him for. But on the other hand he was surely inspired by German-Italian fascist architecture, which sometimes made the events depicted in the film even more disgusting. I did have a big problem with the runtime, tho. Maybe the film's notoriety has something to do with this, but I felt that Pasolini's intentions with the film were very clear early on in the film. But still it dragged on for a very long time and I found little actual difference between the three 'circles' of the Dante-esque structure. I think I would have preferred a condensed (not necessarily censored) version of Saló, which doesn't outstay its welcome by lingering on needlessly after a point is made. And this is probably the seventeenth time I've raised this issue, but I really don't like the way Italian cinema treats the sound recording and mixing. And from the good directors, Pasolini may be the more annoying.
. Achja nog veel leuks om naar uit te kijken zeker.
