Marquis

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...

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.

i was impressed by the variety of animation techniques in this film. Marquis played at the 'art' movie house in salt lake, which was across the street from where i worked. this was the kind of theater that only played movies for 2 or 3 days, and their schedule only described it as 'animated'.

long story short, i invited a girl to see this as our first date. while i was amazed by the animation and found some of the dialog/situations to be humorous, i felt quite awkward under the circumstances. luckily, she wasn't too offended, and even found the Marquis' talking, um, body part rather cute.

i have tried to find this movie several times over the years, if only to see if it was really as crazy as i recall.

Whatever one thinks of the recent rise of Sade as a darling of the intelligentsia and pseudo-intelligentsia, it must be admitted that some not-bad films have been made about him. This film, unfortunately, is evidence more of the trendiness than the historical interest, as its whimsical and overly-bizarre production attests. Only if there is a future sub-genre in which giant rats are sodomized by lobster tails is it likely to remain more than a curiosity. Yes, I know it had a talking penis in it. Tee hee. I still found it empty.

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.