Quote:
Originally Posted by Colonel Blimp
Kind of funny - I don't think I'm displeased by a movie that is seeking to offend, or is clearly an exploitation/provocative film.
I've never seen "Salo" or "Irreversible" but those are movies that are trying to shock/disturb the viewer - so what would be offensive? That I wasn't offended enough? So for "Gummo" I know I didn't like it - I've seen it once a long time ago, and I thought it was dumb and unpleasant, but some of that was what it was trying to be, so that's somewhat the movie's point.
I am more disturbed/offended by movies - that through no fault of their own - show the morality of their era in an unironic way that doesn't hold up (IMO).
It's been said before, but many of the teen-focused rom-coms of the 1980s use stalking, harassment, revenge porn, and date rape as comedic plot points. They aren't being "provocative," they actually believed they're being funny. So those are the movies I liked back then but today find unwatchable and "offensive."
That's where you get to each person's line - I think "Animal House" is clever but "Porky's" is gross. You say tomato.
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Just a warning, this is a pretty graphic post.
Having seen Salo, what bothered me was
[Show spoiler]at least in my opinion, the book got the job done. You were shocked, you were horrified, and you were forced to take the government and the church, both of which de Sade despised, off their respective pedestals, which I believe were his intentions. While in those days it was considered horrible, slanderous, and blasphemous to think such things or make such statements, in the 200 years since he wrote the book, it's become obvious that both the governments and churches of the world needed to be taken down a few pegs.
The book got the job done, and while film adaptations of books are usually unnecessary, this one was really unnecessary. Most importantly, the book had no real children. True the readers likely imagine real children being tormented, which contributes to the horror, but there's no actual children being harmed.
Enter Pasolini, who at 41 began dating a 15-year-old boy he described as "the love of his life". After said 15-year-old eventually left Pasolini, the director filmed a scene where the then-adult was castrated on-screen.
This was not Pasolini's first encounter with children. In 1949, the then-27-year-old Pasolini was arrested for engaging in sexual misconduct with three minors aged 16 and under, causing public uproar. Clearly he had some interest in children.
I've come to the conclusion that in making Salo, Pasolini had the opportunity to make a film he himself wanted to see. Not a film with biting satire, but a film where children could act out every perverse fantasy he had, plus he would be able to call the film art and hide behind it if anyone said anything. Honestly, having seen the film once, which was one time too many for me, it's the closest I've come to watching child porn. What made it child porn in my eyes wasn't even any specific moment, or all of the film put together, but the intentions of the creator. He wanted to make a film that aroused himself, and tragically the brutal sexual abuse of teens is exactly what he wanted to see.
Whereas the book had children that literally didn't exist, and the horrible events in the book were confined to your mind, the movie took those horrible events and made them real. When you read the book, you're horrified about this event occurring in a book. When you watch the movie, you're horrified that you're actually watching the event occur with a real minor. I reached the conclusion that while de Sade's purpose in creating the book was to opine on things wrong with the government, religion, and society as a whole, Pasolini's purpose in creating the movie was to create a film he could be aroused by and to do so while weaseling around the child porn laws. (Italy has a gray area as to whether "fictionalized child porn" is illegal or not, and I believe this is the loophole he tried to take advantage of.)
When Pasolini was murdered mere weeks after the film was released in Italy, one of the things done to him was that his genitals were hit repeatedly with a metal bar until they were crushed. While most believe his death to be caused either by the Mafia or by political opponents, I'm in the minority that believes it was retaliation for both his real-life sexual contact with minors and his film.
Where criticism of the film hits a speed bump is that most of the criticism that's aimed at Pasolini instead lands on the innocent people who just wanted to watch the movie. Well over 90% of people who've seen this film wholly disagree with my assessment of the film, and of those who've seen the film well over 99% of them are normal people who aren't doing anything wrong, illegal, immoral, or the like. Most times when someone attacks the film and the filmmaker, they take the film's supporters down too, whether by accident or on purpose. There's even a notable case in the US where a Christian group called the police to a video store and claimed the store was renting child porn, and both the store's management and the one person who rented Salo on tape were arrested for child porn. (There's a lot more to the story, but it ended with all charges being dismissed and the customer and management being cleared of wrongdoing.)
Even though I honestly hate the film (it's probably the film I hate the most), and even though I hate the director, the film doesn't really reflect on the normal 99% of its viewers who aren't trying to watch child porn, they're just trying to watch a movie.
Just my two cents.
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