A middle-brow mulling of the issues of free expression and censorship, with the Marquis de Sade as the bone of contention. (Present-day application warmly invited.) The movie does not try to deny literature's potential damage to weak minds -- at least to the extent that a slobbering resident of the loony bin might mistake a work of fiction for an instruction manual -- though it does draw a veil of quaintness ("Venus mound," "pikestaff, " and the like) over the grosser verbal excesses of the Divine Marquis (if not totally crazy, at least pun-crazy). It predictably makes great play of the real sadism of the new "alienist" at Charenton Asylum -- a man who appears P.O.'d that he missed out on the Inquisition -- as distinct from the imaginary sadism of his most infamous inmate. (Geoffrey Rush and Michael Caine play the Marquis and alienist, respectively, as if auditioning for the lead villain in a Victorian melodrama: Rush the campy option, Caine the straight-faced.) And the case is rounded off with the facile revelation that our guardian of morality will be only too happy to set aside principles in the interest of profits. Philip Kaufman's first movie in seven years, shot in a mossy, moldy blue-green, is right in line with the culturally sanctioned erotica of his Henry and June and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. And as proof of his high-mindedness he holds back the necrophiliac fantasy -- Kate Winslet supplying the body -- as a last-minute reward for the viewer's commitment and endurance. Joaquin Phoenix, Billie Whitelaw. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.