Set in a mental hospital, Marat/Sade is a "play within a play" type of story where the inmates represent a piece written by one of their fellows, the infamous Marquis de Sade. Although the title is frequently shortened to Marat/Sade, its complete title is The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, and it was originally written by Peter Weiss and published in 1963. Peter Brook directed both on stage and on the screen (this latter one in 1967).

Marat/Sade presents us with a play, put together by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton (an insane asylum founded back in 1645, and well known for its humanitarian treatment of patients, that actually held the Marquis de Sade until his death in 1814), to shows us the last days of life of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. The story happens in post-revolutionary France, with nurses, guards and Coulmier, the director of the hospital himself, supervising the play and intervening every now and then to restore order. For, in spite of the fact that the inmates promised a piece that would endorse the patriotic views of the post-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they continuously deviate from the script to speak lines that the director had censored before, behavior which is constantly justified by the Marquis with philosophical arguments about the revolution and the unsatisfied needs of the poorest of all.

Since the very beginning, there is a permanent foucaldian touch in this movie. Right after the inmates enter the main room which will serve as the stage during the opening scene, the authorities walk in and we see the guards marching in lockstep like Nazi or Red Army soldiers in an environment surrounded with the excesses of the color white, a presence that overwhelms with its forced neutrality (no wonder most hospitals decided to move to more subdued hues of green a long time ago, the imposition of the white is just overwhelming on the spirit, imposing itself as a constant, insurmountable, totalitarian presence). The presentation of the play is even more foucaldian:

We're modern, enlightened, and we don't agree with locking up patients. We prefer therapy through education and, especially, arts so that our hospital may take its part faithfully following our Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Nice intentions indeed, but, again in the foucaldian mold, the talk of freedom is rather a cover for the underlying oppression, a disguise for the transition from a disciplinary society to another one based in control. Thus, when the play begins and we see some inmates holding hilarious banners that read thins like "Free Doom" instead of "Freedom", they state that "the revolution came and went, and unrest was replaced by discontent", things appear to get out of control, and the director of the hospital reprimands de Sade while talking about "the exemplaru lifes of the men who made France great" (at this point, the camera shows a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte). We are modern and enlightened, but the inmates are still inmates and they can just carry out their criticism so far. It is certainly not by accident that most viewers are attending the play safely protected by a high fence of iron bars that surrounds the stage as if they were in a prison.

The play continues, showing a paranoic Marat who plainly states "I am the revolution" and sees traitors everywhere (as he explains, people who sport royal crowns in their underwear), interspersed with musical representations here and there, while the inmates play out the execution of the king displaying an obvious joy while they pour blue paint (signifying the king's blood) into a bucket and the director of the center again interrupts to complain about the excess of violence which leads the Marquis de Sade to explain:

...death is simply part of the process. (...) Nature will simply watch as we destroy the whole human race. (...) Man is a destroyer but if he kills and takes no pleasure in it, he's a machine. He should do it with passion.

He goes on to describe how Darmien was carved up into pieces as punishment for his attempt to assassinate king Louis XV, the public execution lasting a total of five hours, which barely compares with the cruelty of the guillotine ("that was a festival with which today's festivals cannot compete"). One of the actors returns to the play after explaining out loud that "we are just watching these barbarous acts that could not take place today" in an attempt to placate the authorities and therefore showing very clearly, once again, how the whole speech about "enlightenment", "modernism" and "freedom" is quite limited, for it only applies to those willing to play within the rules and to agree that the fundamental conditions of the social reality should be left untouched.

But the Marquis does not only contrast against the director of the asylum. He is also presented as a cynic when compared to Marat who, in spite of all his paranoia and cruelty, still has some ideals. Thus, Marat realizes that the French Revolution was not carried out to all its full potentiality:

We invented the revolution, but we didn't know how to run it. Everyone wants to keep something from the old regime, so we sit down and write into the Declaration of Rights of Man the right to private property, and we sit there, more oppressed than when we began.

It is Sade who has to remind Marat that "compassion, Marat, is a property of the priviliged class", speaking against patriotism and, finally, against sacrificing everything to the Cause:

— Marquis de Sade: It's easy to get mass movements moving. (...) I don't believe in the sacrifices being made for any cause. I believe only in myself.
— Marat: I believe in the revolution...
— Marquis de Sade: The spoils are being grabbed by businessmen, middlemen, financiers, operators, manipulators...
— Marat: ...but the revolution must continue.
— Director of the Asylum (interrupting): We're all revolutionaries nowadays.

The exchage between the two continues throughout the whole play, with de Sade spitting to Marat's face:

You still believe that justice is possible? You still believe that all men are equal? You still believe that all occupations are equally satisfying, equally rewarding?

...while Marat defends himself and the violence brought about by his revolution:

We can't begin to build until we burn the old buildings down, no matter how dreadful this may sound to those who lounge contentedly without scruples.

Here we have, already, the opposition of the revolutionary idealist and the individualistic cynic with hints and winks to Foucault and Marx, an opposition that has become quite common today. We live in a world without utopia, a world where Fukuyama can only speak of "the end of History" at the price of removing human freedom, where the Marquis de Sade appears to have won his final argument against Marat.

Before deciding what is right and what is wrong, we must find who we are. I don't know that myself. (...) What we do is but a shadow of what we would do. (...) We spoke of the authorities that turn laws into instruments of oppression, but how would you fare in the new rearranged France you yearn for? What's the point of the revolution without general copulation? Marat, these calls of the inner self are worse than the deepest dungeon, and as long as they are locked all your revolution is but a prison mutiny to be put down by corrupted fellow prisoners.

The end of the play is chaotic. Marat is assassinated, the inmates pour black paint into a bucket with a grin in their faces, the director of the asylum demands that de Sade explains the meaning of the whole show, to which he can only reply:

I'm left with a question that is always open.

One of the actors shouts:

Listen to me! Marat died for you!

Violence ensues, the guards are overwhelmed by the crowd, the bourgeois women who attended the play next to the stage with the authorities are raped, the doctor is attacked, anarchy prevails... and de Sade simply smiles. Is this the revolution? Perhaps the final revolution?

Marat/Sade is full of symbolism. The actors do an excellent performance, and the debates between de Sade and Marat come to illustrate the ages old debate between social idealism and cynical individualism. The conclusion? Perhaps, after all, there is simply no meaning to life at all. Perhaps, as de Sade would maintain, there is no true subject. We are all objects in the social reality, and can only experience ourselves as subjects in our own personal lifes. But then, this would go against the very core of the modern tradition that is at the base of our society. That is precisely the reason why de Sade continues being so subvesive after so many years. Marat/Sade is an enjoyable movie as long as you care about the topics being discussed and do not mind the fact that all the action happens within a single room. It is, after all, a play within a play.

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Entertaiment factor:3/10
Artistic factor:6/10
Intellectual factor: 8/10

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