User reviews

As our republic turns to an Empire under another mad King George, it is interesting to see in another time the responses of power-mad people who are sex obsessed and repressed to a libertine.

For the first time, I began to understand 'why Napoleon'? As we see the French aristocrats in their maggot-laden prison (evoking the maggot-laden aristocracy and their excesses?), we come to view the soon-to-be headless from another perspective. As far as I'm concerned, deSade is merely an excuse for showing us how it is to face death daily. These people because of their wealth could afford to pay to live in this 'asylum'. Most assuredly, seeing the headless, former friends of yours dumped into ditches outside your 'chateau' would drive you mad....knowing your own fate lay mere feet away. The guillotine, also erected nearby provided yet another view. In order to inject a little humor in what otherwise is unbearable (how many of you remembered the photographs at Auschwitz when you saw the ditches filled with the bodies?), we see the French peasants on burial detail throwing the heads from one to another. We are then told by a young man, obsessed with watching the daily parade of tumbrels to the burial ditches (formerly gardens-- growing vegetables that you watch uprooted....what pictorial analogies!!!) that "They are wedging the heads into the bodies." Scuse me for pulling a Henry James on you.

Autiell is indeed magnificent. Having just seen "The Widow" where he plays a sheriff about to USE the visiting guillotine on a good man, I thought the role-reversal was a great perspective for him. As Sade, he too faces the blade: as Ropespierre, in his obsession to force belief in a diety on the French, is trying to execute de Sade as an example of a 'godless atheist'. (Can you be an atheist without being godless? Seeming redundancies fascinate me.) I could not hear this announcement without thinking of our clear disregard for the Constitutional separation of church and state in our 'under God' interruption of the nice cadences of the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm old enough to have learned the Pledge when it wasn't hampered with a reminder of our careless disregard of the Bill of Rights.

Of course, there's a sex scene. Which raises the question, "Is it men who get turned on by violence?" To me, it was repulsive. Being introduced to sex by a gang bang would have made me frigid, I'm thinking. Yet, as Auteill tastefully points out to the young man whom he has just had whip him, "You're hard; that's good." Is that why men like violent movies? And is that why they can, with logic-tight compartments in place, cry out against movies with sex scenes while loving an Arnold Schwarzenburger 'kill-all with loud guns and lots of blood' fest? They have been sexually satiated with the violence, so need no 'cissy love-with-sex' scenes? The idea that adultery is worse than mass and/or state-sanctioned mass murder by my country-men still astounds me!! But maybe, this is a partial explanation.

Sade is aging, and it would have been more convincing for the maiden's introduction to sex, had Auteill not been so sexy and full of chemistry himself, as it oozes out of the screen, as though we had the ability to pump phenomes through the air!!! Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a great auditorium (where I saw this film), but it ain't there yet!! See 'Quills', see 'Marat/Sade' and see this. All different viewpoints of a very complex point in French and world history.

Beautiful film where the action is mainly substantive. The story takes place in the period after the revolution, during which the population suffered under the terror of Robespierre and his associates. The grim, unhinged chaos in which friend and foe alike had to fear for their lives, and where everyone did everything to save their own skin, is depicted vividly. The atmosphere in and around the dilapidated Picpus convent is delectable. Isild Le Besco and Marianne Denicourt are truly captivating and Daniel Auteuil plays a wonderfully engaging Sade. It's impressive how Benoît Jacquot contrasts the literary perversity of De Sade with the much greater literal perversity of the revolution. Just because of the climax in the barn, this film probably wouldn't be allowed to be made today. All the snowflakes would go completely berserk. A great movie for anyone who loves French history.

a must see movie to (re)discover the real sweet and human philosophy of le marquis de sade.

the duo auteuil/jacquot builds the simplest and the finest image of should have be the true donatien alphonse françois de sade. DVD bonus provides multiple interesting point of view of the team interviews.

direction by benoit jacquot is simple and historically and in context very sharp.

It's more than a movie because it makes you understand the enormous paradox between the word "sadic" and one of our gentle , humanist , coherent , true, realist philosopher we ever had .

Director Benoit Jacquot has crafted a near-masterpiece here! The setting is France, 1794, & the French Revolution is in the throes of the Reign Of Terror, with organized French commoners - "The Third Estate" - imprisoning, torturing & executing former French noblemen & noblewomen (King Louis XVI has already been beheaded by a guillotine).

The Committee of Public Safety, led by Robespierre, & the Committee of General Security decides who lives & who dies.

Former noblewoman Emilie de Lancris - played beautifully by Isild Le Besco - sits in prison, a converted chateau. Isild is bright, intelligent, has a fair, beautiful face & is about 17 years old. Her parents are prisoners along with her, as are many former members of the French nobility, and their children, too!

The Marquis de Sade arrives at the prison, & his infamous reputation precedes him: In his younger years, a pornographic novelist (with some supporters calling his novels literature), a devotee of sadomasochism, including the use of leather whips on bared flesh, a man who tied virgins to beds & gleefully deflowered them. You name it - the Marquis de Sade had tried it!

But now, de Sade is older & imprisoned. How will he react to this? He is impressed with the beautiful, young Emilie & tries to strike up conversations with her; Emilie is torn between heeding the warnings of her mother to stay away from de Sade & entering into friendly repartee with him - she bestows a toothy smile upon him at one of his witty remarks. The truth is, she instinctively likes de Sade & so becomes his "friend".

The Marquis de Sade is most likely Atheist or Agnostic & will have nothing to do with "magical thinking". As de Sade & Emilie become friendlier, Sade schools her, "Mind & Body can not exist without each other," & Emilie remembers this.

You see, Emilie is 17, & she is filled with a burgeoning lust & desire; but who will her desire glom on to? At least in part, Emilie longs to be deflowered.

And at this precise point, the executioners arrive at the prison with a list of the condemned. Not all prisoners condemned were guillotined; many were shot to death, while still others were bludgeoned. When the officials order certain prisoners to start digging trenches, the pressure on de Sade & Emilie rises. Will Emilie "become a woman" before she dies, or will she survive the threatened spate of executions unscathed? The Marquis de Sade has only 3 choices: 1) He can remove himself from the situation entirely; 2) He can penetrate Emilie & "make her a woman"; or 3) He can play match-maker for Emilie & a young beau for a pleasured encounter. That's it. What will they decide? You'll have to watch "Sade" for yourself to find out!

I will say for some skittish American viewers - if you're out there - that although the majority of the film is performed in period costumes, there is a frank, revealing sex scene & an instance of Beautiful nudity.

Meanwhile, this reviewer has practically fallen in love with actress Isild Le Besco; she is so naturally Beautiful & shuns makeup. I plan to watch as many Isild Le Besco movies as I can find!

Make time for this incredibly good movie! 9 out of 10 stars!