1st Review of Le Marquis de la Croix

Le Marquis de la Croix

Bolivia 2012
produced by
Amy Hesketh, Jac Avila, Roberto Lopez L. for Decadent Cinema
directed by Amy Hesketh
starring Mila Joya, Jac Avila, Amy Hesketh, Eric Calancha
written by Amy Hesketh

review by
Mike Haberfelner (re)searchmytrash.com

A young tourist (Amy Hesketh) stumbles into a museum dedicated to the (long deceased) Marquis de la Croix (Jac Avila). She catches the guide (Eric Calancha) depicting the last years of the Marquis, when he was held in solitary confinement - well, solitary confinement in theory at least, actually, against a healthy sum of bribe money, he was given an endless supply of beautiful young condemned-to-death female convicts to torture and kill at his leisure ...
The Marquis's latest victim is Zynga (Mila Joya), a young gipsy who might be innocent of the crime she has been accused of, but her innocence only attracts the Marquis all the more to her, as he forces her to fellate him. whips her, strips her naked, puts her on the rack, humiliates her in every way imaginable, and whips her some (well, a lot) more, until he has broken her spirit and she begins to feel her torture and humiliation as normal and accepts him as her master. And then he crucifies her ...
Of course, this story can't be verified or falsified, as it only exists in the Marquis's memoirs, which might be 100% made up. Then again, this could happen to everybody, even our young tourist ...

One thing up front: Le Marquis de la Croix is not a film for everybody, as it doesn't shy away from showing exactly what it's talking about - which means you see a naked woman being tortured and humiliated, a lot. And while Mila Joy does look just gorgeous in the nude, you might not want to see her treated that way ... but on the other hand, at the end of the day, this is just a movie of course.
With the obvious out of the way, Le Marquis de la Croix, despite its very graphic content, is more than just mere torture porn, as in its off-screen narration (by the Marquis himself) it mines the de Sade-like philosophy of its villain and gives fascinating insights into his depraved mind - but in a twisted way that reminds one of Nietzsche's "if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
So once again, this film isn't for everybody - but if you can stomach it, it's also a quite fascinating little film.

Oh, and if my review at all got you interested, you may want to get the movie from here:http://movies.vermeerworks.com or http://vermeerworks.com/store/dvds/

review © by Mike Haberfelner