Director: Jess Franco
Year: 1969
Country: West Germany/Italy/USA
Alternate Titles: Marquis de Sade: Justine; Justine and Juliet; Deadly Sanctuary
Genre: Sexploitation
Plot:
After refusing to follow her friend, a woman ends up wandering through a series of encounters featuring a wide-ranging selection of perverts, degenerates, and others that are tempted to use her innocence and virginity to their own sick desires and must find a way to keep her integrity intact.
Review:
Overall, this one was fun for what it is but does have some issues. What works for the film the best is the rather degenerate and perverse atmosphere present here with the various people that she falls into. Based on the episodic nature of everything that takes place here with the film presented almost anthology-like with the way it presents the groups and individuals that she comes across who are present with their own kinks and fetishes that require her to lose her innocence during the encounters, there’s an air of unmitigated sleaze running through this despite how often it tries to disguise everything with an air of class due to how it all comes together. Relying on how everything happening to her keeps this going along as a presentation involving her continually meeting these people is a fine enough premise.
That said, there are some issues with this one. The main factor holding it back is the generally underwhelming concept where the events of the film are based around the idea of everything happening to a point where it grows comical how over-the-top it feels. Everything it goes through here with it showing her wandering through a series of increasingly perverse encounters with people that just makes everything come off like it's too bizarre to feel realistic that these would occur to a singular person. It's all quite contrived to a point that makes for a somewhat difficult time in making sense of what's happening which leads to a disjointed time throughout here. It also doesn't help that some of the stuff is also undone by the unnecessary stoppages to go back to the prisoner which is unnecessary and just ruins the pacing by focusing on these underwhelming sequences that merely drag the running time out that don't need to be there which are what tends to lower this one overall.
Overview: ***.5/5
A slightly problematic but still somewhat enjoyable as a classic arthouse-style exploitation effort, there’s enough to like here while just being let down by a few factors that leave it slightly disappointing. Those that are appreciative of this style of arthouse sexploitation style of filmmaking, are fans of this genre or enjoy the work of the creative crew will have plenty to like here while only those that don't go for any of these factors should heed caution.
MARQUIS DE SADE'S JUSTINE (1969) - Restored 1080p HD French Movie Trailer - Blue Underground from Blue Underground on Vimeo.
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