Justine (2016)

Amy Hesketh: Justine

Quotes 

• [breaking the fourth wall as she is being raped by Rodin and Omphale whips the helpless Rosalie] 

  Justine : This punishment is inflicted by God himself. He curses Eve, because she has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Unto women, he said, "I shall greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you."

• Rodin : [breaking the fourth wall]  Rosalie told me this monster, her father, plans to use her in his 'grand plan divine'. Poor Rosalie is doomed.

  [Rodin and Omphale bind Rosalie topless on a rack and start to stretch her limbs] 

  Rodin : I seek truth, I seek perfection and we'll never reach the ultimate perfection unless we offer the world the cruel death of our firstborn

  Justine : [breaking the fourth wall]  His daughter is precisely what he needs. He's preparing her for a "noble fate".

  Rodin : [handing a flogger to Justine]  Here. Do to her as I did Omphale.

  Justine : I cannot.

  Rodin : Yes you can. Do it now, or she'll suffer more.

• [after Rodin concludes a lengthy session of torturing Omphale, then kisses his victim gently, Justine slowly claps her hands] 

  Justine : I applaud you, our dear lord and master. Your wisdom astonishes me... but your indifference confounds me. I thought you amorous.

  Rodin : I? I in love with the girl? Oh, my sweet, I thought you knew me better by now. I just torture you, all my creatures, when I have nothing better to do.

• [referring to Rodin's abuse of women as she breaks the fourth wall] 

  Justine : For libertinage... libertinage alone - a passion he carries to its extremes.

  [Justine and Rosale watch as Rodin alternately kisses and flogs the bound, beautiful and topless Omphale] 

• Justine : Is this place our prison?

  Rosalie : Yes, my dear.

  Justine : [narrating]  Such was our unique dwelling place

• [referring to Rodin] 

  Justine : He means to make his own version of a passion play with his daughter as the sacrifice.

• [last lines] 

  [Juliette explains her plan of revenge upon Rodin to Justine, who is being crucified by the madman] 

  Juliette : That is what I promise to do for you, my sister, but first you must answer me something. Do you see paradise? Do you see hell waiting for you?

  Justine : ...I see only darkness.

• [as Rodin binds his daughter to the wheel] 

  Rodin : Think of it, just think of it - one life to save millions. May one hesitate when the price is so modest?

  Justine : [breaking the fourth wall]  When Michelangelo wished to render a realistic Christ, did he make the crucification of a young man the occasion for a fit of remorse? No, he copied him in his death agonies.

• Rosalie : I am going to tell you everything.

  Justine : What?

  Rosalie : [breaking the fourth wall]  The charming girl, speaking with all the candor proper to her age, told me about Monsieur Rodin. Rodin is a scientist, a teacher and he practices medicine. He may be the most accomplished man in France at this time - but his wealth comes from none of these professions.

  [Rosalie draws back a curtain revealing a torture chamber] 

  Justine : I learned from Rosalie on Fridays he carries out punishments from which he derives great pleasure.

  [Rodin strips Omphale naked and binds her wrists] 

  Omphale : I protest to you. I did not...

  Rodin : Of course you did. I saw you.

  [Rodin tugs on the rope, causing Omphale to hang by her wrists] 

  Justine : Rosalie whispered to me these are trifles he invents as a pretext. Omphale is an angel. He only treats her thus because she sometimes resists him.