The Frogmouth's Lament

I just the other day finished the delightful novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin , by Louis de Bernieres. It deals with a part of World War II that's seldom covered in the popular media - the Italian invasion and occupation of Greece. One thing led to another, I found myself reading up of the fantastically ludicrous and fascinating character that was Benito Mussolini, and before I knew it I was having an Italian theme night. This means that I had pasta for dinner, opened a bottle of spumante I'd been given by my father, and sat down to watch Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom . This was not my first time watching Salo , although the first time I saw it was so long ago that I'm pretty sure my copy back then was delivered to me from Quickflix via messenger pigeon. On first viewing, I didn't think much of it. I was young and not yet fully formed, and a recent fascination with extreme horror films meant that I found it aimless, pointless, and kind of boring. Coming back to it ...