Salo banned again
Pasolini’s Salo has been outlawed in Australia again, with the Office of Film and Literature Classification voting to ban it last week.
The film was released in 1975 and immediately banned until 1993. Four years later it was banned again. Melbourne based music and DVD distributor, Shock Entertainment, acquired the rights to the film and re-submitted it for classification by the office’s classification board, which last week voted to refuse classification.
Made by the Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, Salo, or 120 Days in Sodom, was viewed by 13 board members who voted 7-6 in favour of the ban, with the minority stating that the film could warrant an R18+ rating.
“The minority felt that the age of the film and the careful construction of the narrative serve to mitigate against a higher impact,” Ms Bowdler said.
A freedom of speech body, Watch on Censorship, disagrees. A committee member, the film critic Margaret Pomeranz, decried the ban as yet another attack on artistic expression.
“Salo is a film by a significant filmmaker, but there are some confronting scenes in it,” she said.
Thursday 24 Jul 2008 | Paul | Australia
