- Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of France, VICE AND VIRTURE is a stylized retelling of the Marquis de Sade's Justine, as envisioned by one of cinema's most provocative filmmakers Roger Vadim.
- Roger Vadim opens this movie with a short introduction. He explains to the viewers that this story uses history as a backdrop to explore human themes, and with that places himself with the likes of Shakespeare, who used the same method to explore the human condition. Whilst the basis of the movie occurs during the last year of the 2d world war, German officers keep young and pretty girls as prisoners in a French castle for their only sexual pleasure while the others are fighting. The movie is a parable about human passions as the 120 days in Sodoma from Alphonse Donatien de Sade. All the story is fictitious.
This movie is much than the superficial elements as described in the paragraph above (by the first writer). It is a story of power, survival, opportunity, greed, lust, and love. WWII provides an ample setting for these human emotions to play itself out. Some viewers may not believe there is much love, yet this deserves more attention.
Love has many faces and is an emotion that bares its soul in a variety of ways, using broken and bitter people who, through circumstances from WWII, find themselves expressing love that is both crippled and heart wrenching.
Finally this movie questions other concepts, so important in war, such as camaraderie, patriotism, losing and winning, and how soldiers manage these additional pressures when confronted on a daily basis.
This is an intense movie, and although it can be confusing at times with so much Roger Vadim wants to say, he has shown considerable skill in trying to tie all these elements together.
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