This film is not an exploitation film. Anyone that watches it based on that assumption is missing the whole idea of the movie. Pasolini made this film as an indictment of society, culture, and history. The film is about fascism, neo-fascism, and capitalism, and the images on the screen are not to be taken at face value, but as metaphors for contemporary society and politics. The sexual depravity shown on the screen, the coprophagy, the torture, it is all symbolic. For example, the children in the film are forced to eat excrement becuase Pasolini believed that contemporary culture and society was excrement, and thus was force feeding us, the consumer, with excrement.
The most interesting aspect of this film is that Pasolini, a homosexual, linked homosexuality with death and fascism. Why after portraying homosexuality in a beautiful way in his earlier works did Pasolini change his tune, nobody knows. Some think he lost his mind while making this movie.
Many don't like the film because Pasolini makes the victims out to be emotionless and doesn't allow us to pity them. But thats just what he wanted! By watching the movie, we are like the victims, allowing ourselves to be abused and also being a spectator to abuse. Again, everything in this film is done for a reason.
Before watching this film you should be familiar with de Sade, Dante's Inferno, and have some basic understanding of fascism and its history. If you lack any of these three elements, don't watch the movie because you will not get it at all. Again, don't watch this movie at face value. It is one of the sickest, most disturbing films ever made, and it is that way for a reason. Not for shock value or to get banned in country after country, but to make a statement. This film is so dangerous that it is believed by many that Pasolini was assassinated for making it. If everyone got this movie, the world would be in deep trouble.