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Doug Wright's interesting interpretation of the last years of the life of the Marquis de Sade does not pass historical scrutiny. The manner of his death is entirely wrong, the publication of his celebrated work "Justine"is misplaced by a decade or two and the account of De Sade's incarceration in the asylum of Charenton is almost entirely fictitious. All this is excusable dramatic licence. What in Philip Kaufman's film is not, however, is the miscasting of the usually excellent Geoffrey Rush, magnificent when he played the bumbling, mentally ill musician in "Shine", but here unable to convey the libidinous depths of the depraved Marquis.
Initially he is seen in privileged confinement in a luxurious book-lined cell furnished with escritoire and four-poster, with access to a copious wine cellar and the ability to smuggle his best-selling pornographic manuscripts to his publisher via an obliging young laundress, Kate Winslet.
His nemesis is a new doctor, Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), Napoleon's place man charged with the task of suppressing the tiresome Marquis' output. Versed in a new methodology for the treatment of the insane - such as water-immersion therapy - his censorious stance against the libertine cloaks appalling hypocrisy in his torment of his child-wife (Amelia Warner) and the enthusiastic embrace of sadistic tortures masquerading as clinical treatment. He robs the Marquis of the very means of writing, forcing him to use blood and excrement as ink.
Michael Caine conveys authority in a thanklessly unsympathetic role, but Joaquin Phoenix is colourless as the well-meaning young priest who is nominally in charge of the establishment. Kate Winslet, however, is surprisingly effective, bringing force to an ingenue part.
The prologue and epilogue, designed to open up a stage piece, are unnecessary, and the Oxfordshire locations hardly convey Gallic authenticity to European eyes.
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