These guys knew they were going to die

One of the big questions that people tend to ask is what motivated the four libertines to engage in this enterprise of debauchery and sadism. It's unclear if it's precedented in their lives on a scale such as this, but due to the allied forces closing in on Italy and Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944, these blokes saw the writing on the wall and decided they needed one last hurrah to indulge in their deepest and darkest sexual fantasies before the war would finish them.

It's the only motivation I can think of for a group of people so willing to devour feces, which I'm sure people as educated as they knew posed a great risk of Hepatitis-A or many other bacterial infections. And due to their resentment of the younger generation who were likely to make it through the war relatively unscathed, they wanted to take them down with them in their dastardly plot to destroy their innocence by subjecting them to unremitting torture, humiliation and degradation.

And who were these guys anyway? What position of power and influence did they wield in the Italian fascist hierarchy? It's likely they were highly respected men in their community, which makes you wonder what powerful and influential people in your own community would be like under similar circumstances.

I guess after thinking of all that, Salo is really about how low human beings can potentially sink when they're aware that their days are numbered. If you think the bad guys won at the end of the film, your knowledge of history might save you some grief as you realise that the perpetrators were probably imprisoned and executed for war crimes not long after the events of the film.