Suggested Viewing
from
Jim's Real Detroit Column
10/7/99
When acts of depravity are portrayed using methods more often used for kiddie flicks they seem even sleazier than something out of a porno film. Why else would people want to watch an X-rated cartoon? With the exception of some of the more adult oriented Anime or some of the more adventurous independent animation (or maybe some of the earlier work by Ralph Bakshi) it certainly isn’t the art or animation itself that attracts us. Sure, as adults, most of us can appreciate good animation. We even get a good laugh from Miss Piggy and her Muppet pals. The less human and more rooted in fantasy the puppet is, the more entertainingly human its perversions are. As Thomas Video employee Mark Banaszak says, “Fucked up puppets are funny!”
New Zealand director Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures, Dead-Alive) seems to understand this. In 1989 he made his cult fave Meet the Feebles, where he aggressively replaced all the wholesomeness of the Jim Henson creations with the debauchery of his own drug-using sex-addicted murdering muppet-like characters. Sounds like great fun, and it is.

The more obscure 1989 French film Marquis, takes a similar tact and is based on the works of de Sade. The bizarre alternate world of Marquis is the vision of satirist/artist Roland Topor, who served as art director and designed the detailed costumes and puppet heads worn by the actors. All the characters are animals, who appear to have been relocated from “Animal Farm” to Animal House, and are horny as hell.
As the film opens, the revolution is near and the Marquis has been imprisoned in the Bastille for blasphemy (in this case defecating on the cross). He sits alone in his cell writing his memoirs, with no one to talk to other than Colin, his very intelligent (and animated) yard-long penis. Their discussions run the gamut from art and literature to sexual freedom. Being a penis, Colin is somewhat obsessed by the latter.
The other characters are far more depraved than the Marquis and include: Ambert--a rat-like guard who’s bisexual desires are aimed at his prisoner; Pignou--a greedy pork trader who won’t hesitate a bit to sell a chunk of his own leg; Juliette--a dominatrix mare who is both servicing the warden and plotting the revolution; and Justine--a heifer who was raped by the king and unjustly imprisoned in the cover-up.
The film is very surreal and an obvious (adult) satire, but offensive and discomforting. All of de Sade’s taboos are present including necrophilia, masturbation, and violent sex, and though the rougher fantasies are portrayed using crude clay animation, the film is not for the squeamish or the prudish. It is however, a must-see for fans of the outrageous and the bizarre.
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