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Credits



A letter from the director.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

Balancing on the edge of the black hole which I now call by the name of Salò, I wonder about the road that took us this far. Never in my decade of publicly mapping the shadowlands of human despair have I known a gaze like the gaze of Salò, this forsaken house which has grown with solemn brooding amongst the kindergardens, the cafés, the unknowing passers-by of snowy, clean Østerbro. This is not the faraway castle of Marquis de Sade´s libertine protagonists, nor is it Pasolini´s desolate palace of Italian war time fascists. This is here and now, and ”the four friends” invite everyone to enter. This is certainly no S&M party, and no funhouse either. Our Salò is no more a sex show than Pasolini´s Salò is a porn film.

… for months we have stayed here in the villa already, slowly descending – or did we stumble? This road is not a safe one. We recognize in ourselves the victims and the perpetrators so absurdly alike, and yet never to be reconciled. We do not allow ourselves to rest at the sidetracks of hope, or run back home. We spend our days daring to distrust the human race and yet vowing to trust each other as we walk into the emptiness. Matter of factly, we discuss means of degradation, the ones we will apply to make hell come seen, we rehearse the pounding of flesh against flesh on dirty carpets, we rehearse words of betrayal, cries of pain, we even measure out pain itself – how much should we really hurt to conjure up the inferno of Salò? Sometimes in our efforts, in the face of horror we cease to ask questions, we even laugh. It is better so. Who is capable provide an answer anyway? Together we prepare the crime scenes, stale satin draped boudoirs, walls of flowery shimmer, dim uplights. ”The hall of Orgies” we do last. At night we withdraw – most to a mattress on the floor, somewhere in Villa Salò – and then we research, each on his own, the tales of abuse, the perversions of power: human trafficking, concentration camps, war brothels, child prostitution, porn, rape... what greedy desires that drive one human to consume and destroy another. The pictures do not go away. By morning gathering, we are pale from lack of sleep.

Are we here in solidarity with victims, because of our guilt? Was it my own anger that made me choose this road, the lingering bitter taste of something swallowed and never spoken? Are we to speak of evil at all, or just of the pain caused? And what are we to say? Abuse should not happen, but it does. It does.

Should we really struggle to show the horrors of Salò and offer no explanation, no solution, no glimpse of hope? The things we usually call 'inhumane' - are they really fundamentally human? ”One should never hope for anything.” said Pasolini, ”Hope is a thing invented by politicians to keep the electorate happy.” Is it hope that enables us to live on comfortably as witnesses of worldwide misery? Does change occur when hope is out? Or is that when the abyss will start gazing into us?

Signa, 15/1 - 2010