Review: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom

Dear Reader,

I have viewed the critically feared 1975 film entitled: Salo: 120 Days of Sodom. And I say to you that I am a very strong fan of the works of one Marquis de Sade. However, much like the late poet of violence and sex himself, the story was a bit hard to get into. I found it somewhat monotonous and dull. For something so "shocking" as it was made out to, be, I must say that I found it lacking in shock value. If I am not mistaken, the Marquis never completed this piece and perhaps that is why the end just ends. There is no epilogue, just the assumption that no one made it out alive. I have read the story in it's English context and find that lacking a few differences, it is very close to its original form.

That being said, I see it nothing more than a sick wank fest. I am a fan of gore and violence and get my jollies from them , like most people (though they prefer not to admit.) However, I do like violence with my sex. In watching this film, and reading the original story, however, I can look at the creator in a psychological way. Perhaps our dear narrator suffered from acute Fecalphelia? (In Laymen's terms, they like Poo. A LOT). I did not find it nearly as disturbing as people suggested. In fact, I think that I find more gold in A Clockwork Orange (One of my favorites) than I do in this film. I do, however, suggest other partake in this cinematic classic merely to say "yes, I have seen it". If for no other reason. I, myself, was informed of this film while in high school and assumed even then, it was something to be seen.

It is in Italian with English subtitles, but I must say, the acting was very realistic and the whores were almost alluring in their own way. Somewhat forgivable. The costuming was period of the forties and the cars were wondrous. The places were elegant and I think the cinematography was very appropriate with it's cut always and what not. However, I was still left guessing what happened to those who were not forced to wear a blue ribbon. Did they survive to go to Salo?

It will leave you wondering, but not in the good sense. In the "okay? What now?" sense. You will left somewhat unfulfilled and with a zombie like stare as the credits role unexpectedly while the two young men are dancing.

As a whole, I give this film a two out of five stars. Perhaps had I been around in 1975 to see it, I may have offered more. But, perhaps I am just desensitized?

Gravely yours,

Pandora Graves

Review: Ex Drummer [2007]

Back in November of last year, I lost my job her in Georgia where I live, and took an opportunity with my uncle to joining his telephone cable extraction crew in the dead cold of New York, where I'm from. The only thing I brought with me was my laptop, an external hard drive and some headphones. My mission while I was there: download as many films as I could so I did not spend any money of DVDs [a mistake I paid for over and over again on previous job related trips]
On The drive up to NY, I stopped at the home of an old friend from a previous job and got online via his wireless connection and started looking for films off my regular radar. The first film that struck me as interesting was Ex Drummer. When I arrived in NY, and got settled in, I slumped down on the couch with my massive DJ headphones on and had my mind blown out the back of my head like a sawed-off shotgun blast by this film!
Three handicapped losers call upon a famous local author, Dries Van Hegen, with a strange proposal: join our band and play the drums for our one and only performance at a local rock festival. When Dries says yes, all hell ensues for the next hour and change...

Right off the bat, from the opening credits plastered all over the streets as magazine covers, bus banners, stickers, and the actors names written on their faces, all the while being shot in reverse from the band ringing Dries' doorbell back to them meeting up on bikes to go ask him to join, I knew I was in for something special.
Visually, Ex Drummer cycles through a hypertext of photographic and editing styles. From slow dissolve montages during the films un-simulated sex scenes to frenetic jump cuts when the band performs at the festival. The camera works slide between documentary distance and surrealist extremism without hesitation, but the camera work is only as honest and depraved as its actors, and they ARE actors. Everyone in this film is so believable in their perversity that it often feels like a documentary we should not want to see, but it is performance and not imitation like the insane charicatures in Taxidermia or a John Waters trash fest. These are fucked up people I do not want to be around, but can't stop watching.
The only stylistic moments of character madness come from the band's lead guitarist/singer with a lisp and a penchant for beating up every woman that crosses his path, Koen de Geyter. Who, whenever he is in his flat, lives upsidedown on the ceiling like a vampire while everything but his bed and his guests are rightside up. It is an amazing and seemless setpiece with visit fequently, and somehow never seems out of place with the rest of the film.
Beyond de Geyter's abode, the horrors of homelife is equally disturbing for the other members of the band, dubbed by Dries "The Femmisnist" as a sick joke that four handicapped guys are as good as four "femminist bitches". Deaf rythim guitarist, Ivan Van Dorpe's home life is just a sick rightside up. With the house in constant squalor that makes the drug den of Trainspotting look like a four star hotel, Ivan screams at his coked up wife while their baby girl wanders around the trash filled bedroom eating her own crap from diapers and crying constantly. But bassist Jan Verbeek's homelife draws the most attention out of the bands members as their practice space and main setting of confrontation and unease. Verbeek has a permanently stiff right arm after a masturbating incident his mother walked in on that also left her bald. While his father is tied up to the bed upstairs in a straighjacket for his own good and to keep him from doing harm to others and himself, a situation that is often asked by Dries about but is never explained.
The questions brought up by Dries are the main drive of the story, as he is a writer, and sees this band as an opportunity for new material while at the same time allowing him to come down from his safe and clean existence to observe and report and their reched lives with the same knowledge he can return to his enscathed at anytime. Dries is both voyer and provocatier as well as our tour guide into this working class hell, and does a great job at both making fun of them and joining in their anticts at the same time. The band and their friends and family are nothing more to him that a set of dominos for him to set up and knock down, and in this function he is also our savior from letting the films horror and depravity spill out into reality
Beyond Ex Drummers amazing visuals and insane but believable peformances is the music that holds it together. From the welcome melodies of Mogwai to the furious thrash of Millionare providing The Femminists backing tracks, the soundtrack is now one of my favorites in a long line of rock band realted films. But its stand out track and the great discovery of the film is the the song "Blow" by Belgian group Ghinzu: a sweeping nine minute mini masterpiece of thrash and melody that has become my most played track on my ipod for the last eight months [think of Muse without all the emo melancholy].

This track plays over the climatic onslaught when Verbeek's father is let loose on the world, and like Ex Drummer itself, is a perfect mix of sight and sound that will haunt and excite all who end up in its path. The film has yet to find a U.S. distributor, and I am afraid it may never cross our shores beyond import copies and torrent downloads. So those curious enough to join Dries on the journey into the heart of darkness, dig hard and you will find it.

Cooper.

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