Markisinnan de Sade

I have been reading a great deal about Bergman's stage productions. I found Madame de Sade stunning, the work of these actresses could not be better. Mishima's play was new to me, and I was initially puzzled why Bergman had chosen it. The obsessive nature of Madame de Sade's love for her husband seems a bit distant from his usual preoccupations, but he brings it all to life superbly.

The scene between Stina Ekblad and Anita Bjork, in which the mother drops her cool detachment to tell her daughter just what she thinks of her daughter's participation in an orgy has a brutal force that sent me back to the Bergman classics of the 1960's. Marie Richardson has a scene in monologue in which she describes the death of a character so graphically and so disturbingly that she stops the show. Acting and directing like this comes so rarely to us.

It is a Bergman movie despite of having being produced to TV - and it is really interesting, because some of his most intriguing works have been produced to TV. The case of Markisinnan de Sade (1992) is not different: We have just six actresses in a very simple stage - it's a Japanese aesthetic, and they face the problems Marquis de Sade deals with the law, being accused of crimes, incarcerated and so. There is his wife, his mother-in-law, his sister-in-law, a friend, the maid of the house and a fried of the family talking about his behavior and how he changed their lives.

It is, at the same time, a very beautiful play shot for television and a very intense drama, filled of filthy yet delicious utterances.