If somebody told you there was a new film that began with a grisly beheading and ended with a character aspirating on a crucifix, you might think, "Oh, Ken Russell is at it again."  Well, you'd be wrong.  Quills, the second film made this year to focus on the later days of the Marquis de Sade, is a decent period piece livened up by two hours of pretty disturbing material. If the beheading and the cross-gagging sound like too much for you to handle, you'd better sit this one out, because the stuff that comes between them ain't much more pleasant.

Quills is set in France at the dawn of the 19th century.  Comte de Donatien Alphonse Francois Sade (or "Sade" to his pals) has been living in the Charenton Asylum for the Insane for several years after committing several unspeakable acts (they aren't shown - only alluded to).  Unlike the rest of the nutjobs in Charenton, Sade (Geoffrey Rush, House on Haunted Hill) has all of the finest things in his cell, including a feather bed and some nice Stickley furniture.  And he has his own little repertory company stocked with the drooling cretins and hairless weirdos who are also imprisoned in the asylum.

A virginal laundress named Madeleine (Kate Winslet, Holy Smoke) sneaks Sade's controversial writings out of Charenton, where they are turned into what becomes one of the author's more famous novels, "Justine."  Napoleon catches wind of Sade's work and sends Dr. Royer Collard (Michael Caine, Miss Congeniality) to the asylum to put the notoriously perverted prisoner in his place via various types of torturous experiments.

The physical coercion doesn't have much of an effect on Sade (he is, after all, the guy they named "sadism" after), but he hits the roof when Collard and asylum boss Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix, The Yards) take away his quills, leaving him unable to vent his urges in the manner to which he has become accustomed.  The result is several scenes where Sade uses various bodily secretions to smear over any surface he can get his filthy hands on.

Viewers will get an earful of some of Sade's sick prose, which, although titillating at the time, seems extremely clinical now, like being front row at a gynecological convention.  Sure, he's the original dirty old man (narrowly beating out Michael Douglas) and was responsible for creating the earliest versions of those trashy romance novels that have Fabio on the cover, but does that make for an interesting enough character to keep a two-plus-hour movie moving along?

The answer depends on who fills the Marquis' shoes.  Rush is as cartoonishly over-the-top as he was in Haunted Hill and Mystery Men (and he uses the same rotten teeth as Shakespeare in Love).  Director Philip Kaufman (Rising Sun) tries to fashion Sade into a raunchy Hannibal Lecter, but he's as harmless as a smirking doorknob.  Conversely, the French film Sade (which should see the light of day in the U.S. in 2001) features a much more even performance from a much better actor - Daniel Auteuil.  The Marquis de Sade should be scary and serious, and Auteuil does both well.  The two films are starkly different, and could almost be about two completely different characters.

Kaufman's film is as uneven as Rush's performance.  Quills is one of those movies that's a period romance one minute and an edge-of-your-seat thriller the next.  The film, Kaufman's first directorial effort that he hasn't penned himself since 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is based on Doug Wright's 1996 Obie Award winning play.  Quills has already been named the year's best picture by the National Board of Review, who also selected Rush's Shine as their top film in the same year Quills won rave reviews off-Broadway.

The rest of the acting is pretty strong, but nothing too special.  None of the characters make much of a transformation, with the possible exception of Collard's child bride, Simone (Amelia Warner, who played the young Fanny in Mansfield Park).  The highlight, amidst the sexual innuendo and violence, is a sidesplitting play put on by Sade, which, like "The Mousetrap" in Hamlet, was conceived to piss off one particular audience member.  The one consistent facet of Quills is the beautifully dark photography from Character's Rogier Stoffers.

2:03 –

for strong sexual content including dialogue, violence and language