Sex as part of life, or why the French got it right
This past week, I saw a movie named “Sade,” starring Daniel Auteuil. It’s about the Marquis De Sade during a short internment in a prison for ex nobles during the reign of Robespierre in 1794. Being that De Sade is the subject of the film, one would expect an obsessive preoccupation with the perverted, deviant all anything overly salacious, something a la “Quills” with Geoffrey Rush. Instead we get a picture of life where sex is a part of the general flux, but not a sick object of obsession as it is in Quills.
I don’t know why this is the case, but the French appear to treat the subject in a much more natural fashion. In the Anglo Saxon world, or at least in New England with its Puritan traditions, the issue has gotten a good measure of repression. Repression creates tension that eventually brings about a fairly ugly eruption of that which has been repressed (q.v. the slew of scandals in the Catholic church). On the other hand, a lack of repression allows natural urges to find non-violent and non-wrenching outlets, creating an overall healthy existence a social interaction.
The two movies, “Quills” and “Sade” illustrate this point very well. “Quills” is obsessed with sex and sexual perversion. Everyone in the movie does not seem to have anything else on his or her minds. As a consequence there do not appear to be any healthy relationships in the movie. In “Sade” on the other hand, the sexual current is something that runs through a series of normal relationships among a group of people; these relationships involve infidelities, same gender relationships and some violent eruptions both wanted and unwanted. Sade himself is shown as one of many participants in the human drama rather than a true deviant; he is merely more conscious of the goings on around him, with the capability to capture and put down on paper the inner workings of urges, passions and frustrations.
Unlike what one might expect having seen “Quills,” “Sade” is not replete with sexually explicit scenes. The one scene that does exist makes “Quills” look like an installment of Sesame Street (now I have given everyone a reason to see the movie). What is shocking about it is not how strange it is, but rather how true it appears (considering the context, that is). What is important to note is that the movie does not revolve around anyone’s attempt to reach new levels of sensuality, but rather the process of growing up – that of a young noble woman, a teenager, who is confronted by the reality of her own growing up and the need to “integrate” into the life that bubbles up around her (an interesting parallel with the protagonist of another French movie, “The Accompanist,” that was made from a Nina Berberova short story -- http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/newsh/items/moviereview/item_3747.html). Thus, in a manner of speaking, Sade helps a normal girl achieve normalcy, rather than pervert the world around him.
11:52:32 AM 
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