Marquis de Sade's Justine
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Movie Reviews of Marquis de Sade's Justine
Movie Review: Justine
Summary: 3 Stars
Interesting, but not enough to hold my interest. I prefered the original boooks of DeSade.Movie Review: Mediocre at its best
Summary: 2 Stars
The first thing that struck me about this DVD was the very poor opening sequence, featuring Klaus Kinski in the role of the infamous Marquis. Yes, this movie will soon be 40 years old, but still, the technique is amateurish and uninteresting.
As for the rest of the movie, it fails to capture the novel's spirit. De Sade's characters are satyrical due to their extreme, impossible cruelty and depravation. Franco's are silly, whimsical, and they fail miserably to amuse or arouse me at all.
Power is indeed a sweet-looking, beautiful young girl, but a limited actress, and the rest of the cast is just plain dull. Except for Palance, who delivers a rather strange performance that, once again, betrays the spirit of the book.
In short, the movie is a big disappointment. While De Sade's novel was a harsh criticism of the morals of his time (which greatly benefited him), the movie, with its happy ending, is a rather short soap opera where the heroine endures some tribulations, but gets her reward in the end.
Movie Review: Since when did "Justine" get a happy ending??
Summary: 1 Stars
I hope you weren't planning on seeing anything remotely related to the Marquis de Sade's great work "Justine" in this film. This is practically a completely different story, the most this movie should say is that it's inspired by "Justine" not that it IS "Justine". This most certainly is not "Justine". If you want to see "Justine" go pick up the French film "Justine de Sade" that is far more faithful to the original story. This "Justine" by Franco is a very artistic version and they take a lot of artistic license, to the point where they completely change the ending and have a "happily ever after" version. I think Sade would consider this an insult.
I have no illusions that filming a De Sade film in the 60's would prove to be quite difficult in terms of censorship, heck it was even more of a problem for the author himself... as we all know of his prison sentence for it. So, in some ways, I'm not surprised they took a lot out, but to change such drastic amounts of the story... I don't know, I'm just not sold on it. A few of the more memorable moments are certainly there, like the band of thugs with Dubois after the prison break, Justine being taken in by the guy that wanted to kill his aunt (though it's his wife in this film) and the monks at the monastery. However, this is very much a softly erotic film and barely touches on the atrocities De Sade talked about (thought probably quite explicit by that times standards). I don't mind that they took out the brutality all that much, but my problem was the script was so far off base that I just couldn't buy into the changes. Like there's this painter that Justine runs into and he is then her rescuer later in the film, as well as love interest. "Justine" by De Sade doesn't have any of this and it leaves me wondering how they thought working in this random character wouldn't be very obvious. It's as if they were trying to take something that is purely debauched and trying to make the audience feel that virtue will triumph. Anyone who has read De Sade, truly, knows that his writings don't work that way!
The one additional concept that I sort of liked was showing De Sade in prison, played by Klaus Kinski, and having visions that apparently influenced him to write "Justine." I thought it was a nifty inclusion, but I don't like the execution that much. The audience views this as a man in prison going insane and being tormented by his dark visions. Based on what I've read of Sade's history, it didn't really work that way. De Sade was making bold statements against society and religious oppression in the most lascivious way he could think of. Sort of an "F you!" to the establishment that had locked him away. The way the scenes with Sade pan out in this film makes me feel that we're supposed to sympathize and feel bad for Sade, because he actually looks as if he regrets what he sees and the tortures he writes about. If that was truly the case he would've stopped with "120 Days of Sodom" instead of writing a vast amount of other tales along similar lines.
The quality of acting is a bit better than the 1970's version I recommended above and I do agree that Romina Power made a very beautiful Justine. Now for those begging to know, there is a decent amount of nudity in this. Nowhere to the degree of "Justine de Sade", but enough to entertain the perverse, though bear in mind this film is far more artistic. I think they played up the fact that Sade was genuinely into theater and they upped that factor a ton. Jack Palance played a superb Father Antonin, for how he is portrayed in the film, considering he was drunk all the time. It did give a very maniacal feel.
Unfortunately they had to deviate drastically from the original story to make this. Not even "Justine de Sade" has detailed footage of the perversions Sade wrote about, but it has a great deal more than in here. It also stays true to the Sadean philosophy and story in general! I feel that Franco's "Justine" deviates from Sade's philosophical concepts greatly. Luckily in terms of directing Franco did do a great job in this department, if only the writer he was working with stayed true to Sade... One thing that is worth watching after the movie is the twenty minute interview with Franco, I found that very interesting and excellent. Take it or leave it, if you're a Franco fan in general, you might find merit in this, but if you're like me and a fan of Sade you will be sorely disappointed... possibly insulted even. I have never seen a film change a story so much. A happy ending to "Justine"... that's almost laughable!
Movie Review: Pretty Poor
Summary: 1 Stars
If you are expecting an S&M feast, you will be dissapointed. I fast forwarded through most of this movie. Granted the lead actress is very atractive, but the "good" scenes are shrowded in this annoying green and red light. not worth it to be honest.
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