Written by the guy who drew Fantastic Planet, it’s Marquis, the story of the Marquis De Sade, as told with anthropomorphic animals. For those not familiar with that name, he’s the guy whose Sadomasochistic writings inspired Salo. Yes, in 1989, there was an adult-oriented puppet film that WASN’T called Meet the Feebles.
Marquis is a period drama/sex-comedy about a libertine writer who is imprisoned for obscenity and blasphemy. While locked away, the Marquis De Sade spends his time waxing philosophy, smuggling in supplies in order to write twisted stories, and talking to his penis. Yes, you read that correctly. On the sidelines, we see the struggle of Justine, the poor woman who the Marquis is accused of raping and impregnating, but who is actually involved in a much deeper political conspiracy. There is also a secret plot against the King of France that can throw the nation into a full-on revolution.

The plot might be intricately designed, but it’s the truly wacked out visuals that will stand out first. The characters of the film are created through actors wearing animatronic puppet faces. These faces are designed to resemble various animals from dogs, pigs, chickens, rats, horses, camels, fishes, eagles, and so forth. They aren’t the most detailed, but they still have blinking eyes, mouths that are able to open and close, and capable of numerous facial expressions. Even the most normal looking of these creatures makes those found in the Land of Confusion music video look like a Sesame Street character. They are some of the freakiest and creepiest looking puppets to make it into a film. They are so intricately designed and bizarre looking, that even the dullest moments in the film hold our attention with ease.

As far as the characters and writing are concerned, we have quite a memorable cast. The Marquis makes for a likable protagonist, a quick witted intellectual and an advocate for freedom of speech. He is a lone man of reason in a country gone mad. I seriously doubt the real Marquis was ever this noble (especially with his numerous documented murders) , but a film this hallucinatory is able to get away with a romanticized take. The other primary lead is the aforementioned talking penis, Colin. Colin is highly mischievous and hedonistic, always trying to find to get some action. They both fight over who takes credit for inspiring Marquis’ writings and are often engaged in some pretty humorous debates about the virtues of the big head vs the little head. Their scenes together have serious chemistry and great comedic timing, which leads to many humorous moments where the rational minded Marquis has to resist the urge to not hump everything in sight. So prominent is his role in the film, that Marquis is basically a buddy comedy between a talking dog and his member.

Sadly the other characters just weren’t given that much care. Justine is basically a whiny damsel whose brief romantic relation with the Marquis comes off underdeveloped and contrived. For supposedly being each other’s inspiration to living, there really isn’t a whole lot of interactions between them. Marquis has more of a relationship with his own member than he does with Justine. This could be intentional, but her segments still feel like filler. Juliette is another character that was capable of much more. A revolutionary who poses as a dominatrix in order to get closer to the Bastille in order rescue her comrades. Outside of a few clever gags where she uses bondage games to extract information from the royal guards, her character is underwritten to. Later on in the film, they do have her get involved with the Marquis, but this happens to close to the ending of the film to make much of a difference. The more effective side characters are the sneaky warden who keeps making passes at the Marquis, and the hypocritical Padre who chastises the Marquis on his obscene writing but gets off to his writings in private. The best writing and most humorous scenes involve these two cleverly written villains. They exist to serve the films theme of authority condemning artists for writing about the kinds of things that they do in private.

The writing and story aspects of Marquis are intelligent and complex. It is a tale of censorship, hypocrisy, oppression, and political and artistic rebellion. Marquis cannot be accused of having no ambition. The problem is that there are so many topics and issues that it wants to discuss, that it’s short run time leaves a lot of these themes half-baked. All of it’s possible areas of discussion are left fighting over the precious few minutes of the film. It leaves a lot of the drama to be unengaging, the politics undercooked, and a lot of the side plots to be unimportant. The film works best when delivering raunchy gags, because it fits the fast paced and rushed nature of the plot. They are the parts that require the least amount of explanation and set up, and become the most rewarding. The only problem being that this ends up leaving the audience to grow tired of any moments of character development or plot movement just to move on to the next outrageous scene. Those who stick with the film in hopes of seeing insane racy humor are guaranteed to be satisfied, but the potential for a better film always seems to hover in the distance.

Marquis is a high concept raunchy comedy that doesn’t always hit the mark, but still remains an enjoyably baffling film for those with offbeat senses of humor. It is an appropriately wild sendoff for painter, political cartoonist, animator, and author Roland Topor. 2.5/5 golden cameras