Marquis

This is one of the strangest movies I have ever seen. I found it to be discomforting and just weird. It makes you squirm in your seat and wonder what the people making this are like in real life. It's definitely entertaining and it sort of sucks you in, especially if you don't know French and have to read subtitles. It is certainly not American and it is certainly very peculiar. I have never seen a movie where everyone is wearing life-like animal costumes and acting like humans in very abnormal ways. This movie gives me the chills. However, I would watch it again just because it is so fascinatingly WEIRD.

Somewhere along the lines of "The Muppets Take the Bastille" via "Deep Throat", this unusual but lavishly produced film is (very) loosly based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade. Using period costumes and animal masks, the interweaving tales of treachery and deception make for clever intrigue, but the high sexual content (in it's brief release in the USA, it was limited to the "art house" circuit), has hobbled the film's availability.

While not a "porn film" in any real sense, it does reflect the sexual mores of pre-Revolutionary France and features clay-animated dramatizations of sequences from the Marquis' own writings. Let the kids watch "The Lion King" for the umpteenth time, then lock the door and watch this for yourself. Just remember that a film like this would NEVER be made in the USA. You'll have to hunt for this one, so don't bother looking for it in your local Blockbuster.

(Sidenote: The designer of the costumes is a puppeteer for a French children's TV show along the lines of "Sesame Street", and it caused a brief sensation when the film was first released.)

I think the film is both an interesting and enjoyable film, showing you what the Marquis De Sade had in mind when he was writing his novels, and it also accompanies you with very surreal scenes with its fable version, and it also delves into the philosophy of the Marquis De Sade. The Marquis is a character you should get to know, and the film introduces you to one of his aspects. It brings a different tone to the spread of his novels and shows the inner city factions of France, and you enter the French theme of those years. I also saw it as a work that tries to do this with black humor.

This is an absurd -not in a bad way- interpretation of the imprisonment of the Marquis de Sade with a French revolution framework. not surprising, it is made by Topor, a cartoonist. The storytelling of Sade's life is mixed with his phantasms to make the storytelling unique and interesting. Better than a dry historic rendering.

The movie is made with animatronics, i.e. men in costumes with faces which are animated, and once a while clay animation. Every person is an animal that kinda represents externally his personality. Sade is a dog with a big penis -his head is a brain- with which he argues.

All the characters are perverted in their own way.

Strangely in 1989 it was rated 12 or older, and I think it should be R, it's intellectual, but since there's absurd sex scenes, perversion galore, and some descriptions of Sade's stories that could be quite disturbing.

Technically, I like how the animatronics make this universe work. Very stylish...

Until I saw 'Quills' I thought I had repressed the memory of this weird animated take on the Marquis de Sade. A man is imprisoned and spends his time talking to his equally animated penis who has opinions of his own.

It's been awhile since I even thought about this film but I don't remember hating it, though nobody I knew would go with me to see it. Every character is represented by an talking human/animal. The marquis slides his member through a crack in between the loose rocks in his cell and hurts himself pretty badly. He cuts himself open to use his own blood to write his stories. A cow/woman gets raped and produces milk/blood out of her udders which is grotesque.

I guess the story is riveting if you're in the theatre with nowhere else to go. Otherwise, you may find yourself returning to the place where you rented this, complaining to the management. Sorry I couldn't be of more help in this review, but it was over ten years ago.