For all the tremendous feedback, that is.

I have no inside info to answer these questions with, but I'd be very surprised if a Criterion DVD -- and yes, maybe Blu-ray -- of this restored version weren't somewhere in the pipeline and not all that far away. For the moment it's only available as a theatrical print; I imagine they want to milk the dozen or so venues in the country that will screen it.

For the reader that suggested Salo: Absolutely. I've got it. Haven't mustered the courage to watch it yet. I've seen the film before, and it pretty much merits its reputation.

And yes, all the magnificent shots in Day of Wrath are precursors to Bergman's work, to an amazing degree. It didn't make me think less of IB, I think; all art is derivative of what's come before. But it certainly reminded me *why* Dreyer is in all those film textbooks.

... but, you know, I generally see my role as exposing a wider audience to "specialty" films that might interest them. In that sense, what I do in this column isn't pure criticism, or is only infrequently so. I think I made my personal reservations about "A Secret" clear enough, although I wouldn't go nearly as far as to call it "terrible."

To be honest, in terms of whether to cover or not, this movie was a borderline call. If I think some small-scale indie or foreign film really stinks, I'll generally just take a pass unless it's otherwise newsworthy in some way. I watched Jessica Yu's comedy "Ping Pong Playa" this week, for instance, and it was just too slight and silly to bother with. I respect Yu as a documentary filmmaker and it's great that she tried to switch gears, etc. Me beating her up serves no purpose; the marketplace is likely to take care of that.

While I don't think "A Secret" is a great film, I think it's honorable and workmanlike. Based on its theme, its emotions, its acting and its spectacle, the movie has a decent chance to reach an American audience with an intriguing WWII story they don't know about. FWIW, my wife, who watches a fair number of movies with me but is no hardcore cinephile, found it fully absorbing and very affecting. So that's the one-woman focus group I rely on in cases like this.

I'm not apologizing for my review in any way; it is what it is. But your comment reminded me that the methodology and/or ideology behind this column, although it may be obvious if you read it all the time, isn't explicit.

Fascinating comments, thanks everyone. dust1969 (sorry if I got that wrong), thanks especially for all your contributions.

As dust observed -- and I really didn't discuss -- this is a beautiful rendering of the film, far, far superior to the washed-out, dirty print I saw many years ago. Salo really did used to look like a dingy exploitation film, but this disc really delivers on Pasolini's intentions and production values, which dramatically changes the nature and value of the viewing experience (I would argue). There have been some complaints about the transfer from other critics, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. Admittedly I don't have a high-end, 77-inch, $3000 plasma HD screen or whatever, but both on my PC's LCD monitor and on a regular, old-school Toshiba TV, this looks exceptionally good.

As I said, I'm not disposed to lecture people on their "need" to see this. It's a genuinely horrifying film, and Pasolini was conscious of two things: 1) few people would get the film, or tolerate it; and 2) what there is to "get" is ambiguous at best. But to dismiss it unseen as scat-porn (or another epithet) is in essence to justify the film's existence, since the intention as I read it is to indict the entire human race for its cruelty and cowardice.

To the Australian reader: I'm sorry, but if the film can't be sold or exhibited in your country then I think the word "banned" is correct. I'm glad the cops won't be ripping open packages from offshore Amazon sites in search of imported versions. And bringing up the FCC's silly, outdated and rapidly fading obscenity rules is really no defense.

Italian reader: I'm not offering the "orchestrated suicide" theory with any confidence or knowledge, but one of Pasolini's old friends has evidently suggested it. You can read the Wikipedia entry for more info. It's true for example that Pasolini had photographed the exact Ostia beach where he had died, although another old friend, the poet Alberto Moravia, thought that was nothing more than a Pasolini-esque coincidence. After Pelosi, the onetime hustler, recanted his confession in 2005, the Italian police actually reopened the case. Shockingly, their efforts to reinvestigate the 30-year-old murder of a gay Communist poet and filmmaker didn't go anywhere.