Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.
Pasolini's final film is one of cinema's most singular and confrontational works — its adaptation of de Sade into a critique of fascist power structures is genuinely distinctive and intellectually serious. Cinematography is stark and deliberate, with cold, institutional compositions that reinforce the film's themes of dehumanization — visually exceptional in its calculated ugliness. Novelty is extremely high: no other film occupies quite this space, blending philosophical allegory, extreme transgression, and political fury in this particular way. Plot is functional as a structural device (the four circles of Dante/de Sade), though it is more conceptual framework than conventional narrative. Acting is adequate but deliberately distanced, serving Brechtian alienation more than emotional naturalism. The ending is bleak and effective but not particularly surprising given the film's trajectory — it lands with grim logic rather than shock.