IN THE SHADOW OF YOUR DIAMOND CASTLE
16mm film transferred to High-Definition video, 2006
Estimated Running Time 13:30 minutes
Producer/ Director: Sabine Gruffat
The Marquis de Sade and his written word (culled from the philosophical
diatribes permeating his letters and novels), combined with the critical
dialogues of writers and scholars influenced by his work, together provide
a heady scent infusing the thoughts and actions of three members of an
upper class family whose summer home, nestled below the glowing hilltop
fortress of the Marquis’ castle, is an elegant fortified Provencal
estate amid a landscape of lavender fields and olive trees. Wandering
the ruins of medieval fortresses and erstwhile chateaus, each character
performs the different facets of Sade’s philosophy while undertaking
all the intoxicating pleasures of privacy and affluence before retiring
(sooner or later, and according to the laws of Nature), to their inevitable
fate.
This film is meant to be viewed and understood on two levels: first as
a narrative in which each character acts and reacts in relation to each
other and their environment, and second, as a document of the different
roles within family and relationship dynamics (in this case particularly
a filmmaker/ daughter’s connection to her family). On both levels,
the Marquis de Sade and his writing become the premise and language by
which communication is intelligible dissolving the psychological and societal
barriers of personhood and secrecy.
