Eve Tushnet on Pasolini’s last film:

In “Salò,” spectatorship is domination, and the viewer is a complicit spectator. Many scenes are framed by doorways and windows; the shots often place the action at the exact center of the frame but far away, calling maximum attention to the camera eye. But the film resists the audience’s desire to see and linger. Pasolini does us the great kindness of making the film unpleasant to watch. (You can tell it is not pornographic because nobody enjoys it!) Physical violations are typically filmed from afar and with the victims’ bodies obscured. “Salò” offers a lesson in how to depict cruelty without re-enacting it—a lesson few filmmakers even want to learn. Nor do we get to know the victims as people. To give them personalities might imply that these personal characteristics are what make their suffering horrific. In “Salò,” it is simply the fact of their humanity that makes their degradation wrong.