Yeah, there is a lot of Reichian psychology and a political underpinning but the film is like a dream and has images that will stay with you for years. The film is obscene, it is meant to be, but in the manner of George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on Radio" or Lenny Bruce in his later, desperate performances. More about obscenity than obscene. It hits our buttons like a neurologist tapping a knee-cap. I never really thought of overdeveloped body-builders as obscene until I saw it in the context of this film.
When I lived in Houston in the 80s, the River Oaks Cinema, a fancy art-house was raided by the Houston vice squad. The double bill was Salo and Sweet Movie. I don't remember which was on the screen when the cops shut it down and sent everyone home. A few years later, Makavejev held a screening at Rice Univ. He said the parents of all the boys watching the striptease were in attendance and that unlike the legendary rumors about the eventual fates of the cast of "Lord of the Flies", all the boys turned out normal.
I noticed that Marpessa Dawn, the lovely Eurydice from "Black Orpheus", had a graphic love scene with the virgin, but at the end of the film, she was in the group at the scat commune and her head was shaved. Makavejev said, "How very perceptive!" She and her husband accompanied the crew to several locations, but at the Belgian scat cult, they had a blow-out. Marpessa sided with the coprophages and shaved her head in solidarity.
Just a note: the Rice Film series later featured Dennis Hopper, on the night he took the entire audience in a caravan to a drag-strip on the outskirts of town and tried to perform the "Exploding Chair" trick. See his biography for details.
When I lived in Houston in the 80s, the River Oaks Cinema, a fancy art-house was raided by the Houston vice squad. The double bill was Salo and Sweet Movie. I don't remember which was on the screen when the cops shut it down and sent everyone home. A few years later, Makavejev held a screening at Rice Univ. He said the parents of all the boys watching the striptease were in attendance and that unlike the legendary rumors about the eventual fates of the cast of "Lord of the Flies", all the boys turned out normal.
I noticed that Marpessa Dawn, the lovely Eurydice from "Black Orpheus", had a graphic love scene with the virgin, but at the end of the film, she was in the group at the scat commune and her head was shaved. Makavejev said, "How very perceptive!" She and her husband accompanied the crew to several locations, but at the Belgian scat cult, they had a blow-out. Marpessa sided with the coprophages and shaved her head in solidarity.
Just a note: the Rice Film series later featured Dennis Hopper, on the night he took the entire audience in a caravan to a drag-strip on the outskirts of town and tried to perform the "Exploding Chair" trick. See his biography for details.