[Salò] joins the list of little-seen but much-written-about oeuvres de scandale which fuel the fires of the censorship debate. This is perhaps the greatest pity, since the film is one of those works which is undoubtedly more horrifying in print than it is on screen. A mere catalogue of its more scandalous moments gives a totally false impression of its overall qualities, and, particularly in the case of Salò, those moments are far from being the sine qua non of its existence. Much of the content may be obsessive and much of it indecipherable to a reasonably balanced mentality, but its construction is far from haphazard and its logic, on its own terms, perfectly coherent. That logic is summarised early on by one of the Fascist overseers: 'All things are good when carried to excess.' And Pasolini invites the viewer into a downward spiral of humiliation and...