Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom, emerges after a quarter-century of censure from the British censor. Relocating the Marquis De Sade's infamous novel to wartime Italy, this extraordinary film has become synonymous with sexual deviance and bestial violence, writes David Parkinson.

Yet, the soon-to-be-murdered Pasolini had loftier ambitions than simply shocking the complacent who thought his work obscene. Each of the libertines committing the unspeakably heinous acts represents a social pillar that had delivered the nation into the hands of the Fascists the law, the merchants, the aristocracy and the church and by depicting their crimes from a distance and by cutting away at the most distasteful moments, he reveals the culpability of the viewer for their passive reponse to the barbarism.

So devastating and darkly satirical, it's almost unwatchable, this is, nevertheless, a landmark in European cinema and should not be missed.