The Marquis de Sade has been locked away in a mental asylum, but he refuses to lie down and accept his fate. With the help of a laundry maid the Marquis continues to find an outlet for his writing and it is only with the arrival of the malevolent Dr Royer-Collard that the grim stink of desperation becomes apparent. The film cultivates an air of sardonic detachment beneath a lascivious leer, it pokes at sexual taboos - it's pretty subversive, considering - but sexuality and creativity are indelibly linked, and its true subject is expression, repression and catharsis. The script's frank libertarian agenda is muddied by Sade's perversity, on some bedrock level he relishes his own degradation, but it's the artist's irrefutable compulsion to write which fuels this dark tale.