Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Azadeh Ta I started to watch this movie without ever having heard of Marquis de Sade, so the opening scene of the movie caught my attention quite shockingly. The subtle way Kaufman maintained the balance between all the important characters without forcing any judgment on the audience is simply brilliant. The film ventures into a very sensitive topic: the sexuality of human beings and its limits, but still manages to stay away from being a movie about sex or a graphic display of Marquis' ideas. Instead the movie is focused on the personalities and what a society on the verge of enlightenment goes through. How a few out-runners break taboos and the freedom-thirsty crowd follows. It is also about different layers there are to people. For example Abbe the priest who is much more liberal in his conduct with the Marquis, Madeleine and all the other patients although he is a priest and very much chastised to the extent that !SPOILER ALERT! the conflict he struggles with in his brain derives him to insanity. I need to mention that Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Abbe was exceptional. I believe this was his best performance and also the best performance in the movie which is filled with great actors who portray layered and complicated characters. In contrast to Abbe is doctor Royer-Collard who is openly averted by the Marquis but yet practices some dominant and sadistic behavior with his wife and patients. He is supposed to be a scientist but he is only using this title as an excuse to commit atrocities. Madeleine is an interesting character in her turn since she remains somewhat unexplained. She seems to be attracted to the Marquis stories but does not indulge in his sexual fantasies with him, instead she goes to Abbe who is the exact opposite of Sade to seek passion. Also her role in the whole movie is very daring and she seems to be in a great danger both because she loves Abbe and because she likes Marquis. I enjoyed the movie a lot and recommend it to not young adults but to more mature audience.

chaos-rampant I'm both wary and attracted to films of this sort, period films. On one hand, there is usually good writing, good acting, some luxurious camera-work. And like good sci-fi, they tend to remind us that our present struggles are a continuation, inherited limits.All of which are true here. The film is about the notorious De Sade imprisoned in a madhouse and the purpose of art at large, limits and struggles: just what kind of human being are we? animal or divine? should our expressions reflect or liberate? The actors give their all, Caine and Rush chafing against the limits imposed on their characters from the outside, Winslet and Phoenix forming internal struggles.But the thing is, it's not truly daring, truly provocative. It's not a matter of more sex or more perversion in keeping with Sade, not at all.It's that we have expert theatre but not some reflective human space, what Pasolini could bring in his own period films, not his Sade adaptation but the vitality of his Decameron, the profound and inexplicable joy that hides behind our demons of self and has the power to shatter and ambiguously transform them, showing them to be grotesquely harmless masks forced on us by society.The one great scene here is the one that opens the film, where Sade from his window witnesses an aristocratic lady about to be decapitated before a gleeful mob; transforming desire and caress into a universe of urges, creating an emotional air that is as much of its spying author as of its participants. These few minutes are so perfectly imagined everything else comes across as a slight disappointment.

Cheese Hoven My main problem with this is that it bears absolutely no relation to the truth of De Sade's stay at Charenton. A full list of these can be found at Quills' wikipedia page, but the most horrendous are the torture and tongue removal of De Sade, neither of which took place. The real De Sade died peacefully in his sleep in his 70s and had been freely allowed to write (he also did not write anything sexual while at Charenton).The question is, why is the truth so much distorted? Is it to make the (rather weak) point that De Sade was a champion of free speech while his opponents were pious hypocrites? Such a point is really not worth making especially since De Sade was originally committed not for his writings but he actual crimes, such as rape and attempted murder.Whatever the intention, Quills amounts to a historical slander against Abbe du Coulmier (here depicted as a sexually repressed if well meaning liberal) but more especially Dr Royer-Collard, shown as a rapist, paedophile and torturer! There are some interesting ideas along the way. The Marquis' reductionist view of humanity "we eat, we sh*t, we f*ck" is challenged by the Abbe "but we also fall in love and write symphonies" but this is sadly not taken any further. Other ideas, such as to what degree pornography can provoke rape, as it does near the end, are also under developed.Instead we have plenty of time for wallowing in a soft porn version of the 18th century. Literally all the 'lower orders' are aroused by De Sade's writings, even those old enough to know better, such as the ageing blind mother of the maid. They cavort about in their underwear playing with themselves while the stories are read out or engage in free love. Implausibly Royer-Collard's virginal wife, fresh from a nunnery, has acquired a copy which she avidly reads. And amazingly, the ringleader in this vice, the maid (played by Kate Winslet) is revealed to be a virgin in the end! Mirable Dictu! By contrast all the authority figures are shown as being hypocritically outraged by De Sade's work. Now, an interesting discussion could be had about the merits of pornography both as satire and as a freedom of expression, but they are not had here. Nor is the idea of sex as forbidden fruit really explored other than in this cartoonish way. The real impact of De Sade's ideas are only hinted at near the end, when the aforementioned attempted rape occurs but this is quickly undermined by the dishonest amputation of De Sade's tongue which gives the impression that society is merely trying to silence the messenger.The performances are variable. Geoffry Rush gives his usual commanding performance, while Phoenix effects his English accents. Winslet is so-so in a role which is unconvincingly written

SanFernandoCurt If you look at the cast names, as I did when the credits rolled, you may think you're in for a wonderful time. You're not. There is something about Western society in the past half-century or so: Our self-appointed social visionaries can't relinquish the silly idea that sex and more sex will release us from our backward hangups, usher in a new era of equality and peace, and maybe do the ironing, too. Despite all evidence to the contrary since the '60s, this conviction is advanced with energy and enthusiasm bordering on obsessive/compulsive disorder. The rest of us can only watch in bored disenchantment and growing impatience.This movie really has nothing to say. It makes a few gestures about free will clashing with priggish authoritarianism. There's some gas-bagging about importance of ahhht and ahhhtists. Some women are stripped bare by a director who evidently feels he has something to say. ...And ...we watch in bored disenchantment and growing impatience. There's a scene about halfway in, set as theatrical production by asylum inmates under direction of the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush, in acting service above and beyond the call of duty). He's burdened with a thudding, anachronistic line about shocking his audience with... the truth or something. It would be fine burbled at some academia cocktail party; not so convincing a sentiment in 18th-century France. The scene is supposed to be deliriously funny and invigorating as the prudes have their nose rubbed in clumsily staged sex acts. It fails on both counts. This is the time to go out front for a cigarette, beer or mind-numbing narcotic, just to shake out the fake laughter banging in your head.Where's Peter Brook when we really need him? I give it three stars for great cinematography and art direction. Minus-two for storyline philosophy that should've been junked with all those old Hot Tuna albums.