![]() ![]() In fact, the tone is more bawdy than anything. While 'Marquis de Sade's Justine' is most certainly a film that features copious amounts of nudity, it isn't actually all that depraved a film. ![]() Can Justine's virtue and riotousness withstand the brutal onslaught that only a mind belonging to that of Marquis de Sade can concoct? After meeting the gregarious Madame Dubois (Mercedes McCambridge), Justine escapes from prison and travels the countryside landing in the arms of an evil baroness and her husband, she finds shelter in the arms of a handsome artist, and winds up the captive of a sexual cult lead by the depraved Antonin (Jack Palance). When Justine refuses the sexual advances of a guest, she's set up as a thief, thrown in prison, and condemned to death, thus beginning her odyssey into a seedy and salacious underworld. Her beautiful and expensive green dress is taken from her and she's made to wear a simple smock that just barely keeps her otherwise nude body covered while she works. Justine loses the last of her money and is forced to become a servant girl at an inn. Justine, on the other hand, is a chaste young girl and shuns a life of sin and depravity - even when the most depraved elements of society seem to be drawn to her. Juliette, knowing the value of her beauty and sexuality, takes a position as a prostitute, allowing men with the right amount of money to do as they will with her. ![]() Justine and Juliette have lived their lives in a convent receiving the best possible education, but when their father dies without leaving an endowment for their educations, the two girls are cast out into the streets. The only way for de Sade to overcome these powerful visions is to commit pen to paper and see where the lives of the two girls travel. His wicked desires and imagination bring him visions of two young sisters, the innocent brunet Justine (Romina Power) and her sultry blonde sister Juliette (Maria Rohm). Is the filmmaker motivated to bring de Sade's stories of extreme sexual behavior and violence to the screen to serve the prurient interests or are they using the material to serve as a cautionary allegory? In simpler terms, are they motivated to create a work like Pasolini's ' Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,' or are they more interested in achieving something in tune with Roger Vadim's ' Vice and Virtue' when adapting de Sade? Director Jess Franco took a more comical approach with his adaptation of 'Marquis de Sade's Justine'Īs Marquis de Sade (Klaus Kinski) sits in a prison cell, he is wracked by powerful erotic fantasies. When a filmmaker decides to mount a major motion picture production of the works of Marquis de Sade, you're almost obligated to question the filmmaker's motive. ![]()
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