History Anime / BelladonnaOfSadness

Jeanne (Aiko Nagayama) is a peasant woman who has just been HappilyMarried to Jean (Katsutaka Ito). The couple can't pay an absurdly high marriage tax, so the [[AristocratsAreEvil baron]] (Masaya Takahashi) sees fit to [[DroitDuSeigneur have his way with the bride]].

When she returns home, she is seduced by the Devil (Creator/TatsuyaNakadai) and finds herself gradually turning to witchcraft to find empowerment and freedom. At first, she and her husband are prosperous, but as famine, war, and TheBlackDeath strike the rest of the village, suspicion grows and she is eventually cast out of the village. She wins the villagers over when she offers a miracle cure for TheBlackDeath, but then the nobility catches wind of her power...

Jeanne (Aiko Nagayama) is a peasant woman who has just been HappilyMarried to Jean (Katsutaka Ito) when the [[AristocratsAreEvil baron]] (Masaya Takahashi) demands an absurdly high marriage tax. The couple can't pay, so the baron sees fit to have his way with the bride.

** The Devil appears as a tiny little roughly penis-sized figure wrapped up completely in a white cloak except for his pink head. Shortly thereafter this becomes something more than innuendo as he jumps down into Jeanne's pants and begins pleasuring her.

When she returns home, Jeanne is seduced by the Devil (Creator/TatsuyaNakadai) and finds herself gradually turning to witchcraft to find empowerment and freedom. At first, she and her husband are prosperous, but as famine, war, and the bubonic plague strike the rest of the village, suspicion grows, and Jeanne is eventually cast out of the village. She wins the villagers over when she offers a miracle cure for the plague, but then the nobility catches wind of her power...

''Belladonna of Sadness'' (''Kanashimi no Belladonna'', also known as ''The Tragedy of Belladonna'') is an avant-garde anime film made in 1973, and the final installment in the Mushi Productions' ''Animerama'' trilogy that was started by ''Anime/AThousandAndOneNights''. InspiredBy Jules Michelet's non-fiction book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism_and_Witchcraft Satanism and Witchcraft]]'' (or ''La Sorciere''), the film was directed by Creator/OsamuTezuka's disciple Eiichi Yamamoto and produced by Tezuka's studio Creator/MushiProductions.

* AnimationBump: It's rather an animation earthquake when the slide-show "animation" is suddenly replaced by a full-animated psychedelic extravaganza during the DealWithTheDevil. In general, the sex scenes are intricately animated while the non-sex plot-moving scenes are LimitedAnimation or TheKenBurnsEffect.
** There are also dramatic moments where the animation becomes absurdly fluid. The juxtaposition between still frames and moments like these is both jarring and effective.

* BittersweetEnding: Depending on how one interprets the epic MindScrew of an ending, it's either this or a [[DownerEnding Downer]]. [[spoiler: Jeanne gets burned at the stake, and Jean dies trying to rescue her, but it's heavily implied the rebellion against the upper class and social norms that she started will live on.]]
* TheBlackDeath: Strikes the village. Jeanne sets out to save the villagers but it turns out to be a bad idea.
* BrokenAesop: The film's feminist credentials feel undercut by the constant sexual violence Jeanne endures, coupled with its [[MaleGaze fondness]] for long, lingering pans up and down Jeanne's frequently naked body.
* BrokenBird: It's more Jean that's the broken one than Jeanne. Jeanne is broken after her gang rape but quickly gets her bearings back after meeting the Devil. Jean on the other hand almost strangles his wife after getting cuckolded, and from then on he's rarely sober (his behavior gets worse after Jeanne becomes the main money earner and he gets his left hand chopped off for not collecting enough taxes).

* TheDungAges: Set in an ambiguous time during the Middle Ages, and all of the usual tropes of the time period show up, including DroitDuSeigneur, ThePlague, and [[spoiler: BurnTheWitch]].
* EmeraldPower: Green is said to be the Devil's color. After he gives her the ability to make a highly desired thread to sell, Jeanne becomes the town moneylender and goes around in a green cloak which makes the townies suspicious of her.
* EroticFilm: The film is a deeply bizarre anime film about a formerly innocent young woman who makes a DealWithTheDevil (which involves sex with the Devil) and becomes a HotWitch. Lots and lots of anime sex is had.

* GainaxEnding: [[spoiler:As Jeanne is {{crucified|hero shot}} and {{burn|the witch}}ed, the faces of the women watching her all turn into the faces of Jeanne. The end title card displays a statement about how women lead the French Revolution over the image of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People Liberty Leading the People]]''.]]

* HealingHerb: After her final DealWithTheDevil to become a HotWitch, Jeanne can use the belladonna plant to cure all manner of illnesses and make magical potions, but not regrow a new limb.

%%* IntimateHealing: Jeanne's apparent method of curing the Black Plague.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:The baron receives literally no comeuppance at all for his gang rape of Jeanne, ultimately burning Jeanne at the stake, suppressing the rebellious townspeople, and continuing to reign virtually unopposed. The baroness does cheat on him with the page, causing him to murder them both, but even that doesn't seem to trouble him much]].

* LovePotion: The page gets Jeanne to make him a love potion so he can have sex with the baroness. It ends badly for the Page and the baroness when the baron catches them.

* MsFanservice: Jeanne is a beautiful girl who's never had any shoes (she's so much foot fetish material that in one scene of her gang rape, one of her rapists is playing with her toes) and is fully or partially naked more often than not. And then there are her various erotically charged encounters.

* ObviouslyEvil: The baron doesn't even look like a human being, with a skull-like face, empty black eyes, and horns.
* APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Jeanne's return to the town with a resurrected Michel and the Devil seems to kick off an orgy that consumes the whole town. Probably. At least that's what the extended sequence featuring deeply bizarre DerangedAnimation sexual imagery seems to suggest.
* PornWithPlot: The film is a cult classic for its gorgeous, psychedelic artwork, its awesome {{psych|edelic rock}}-{{prog|ressive rockscore}} and original songs, and its developed, well-written story with feminist themes (explicitly ending with a call for women to be at the front of the revolution - not something you'd expect to see in a porn). It was also intended to be a porno, has some visible budget restrictions due to this, and a lot of very graphic sex scenes.

* SceneryGorn: The montage depicting the Black Death, in which the plague is visualized as a giant black wave filled with human bones sweeping over a city.
* SceneryPorn: Along with regular porn. The backgrounds are very detailed and beautiful.

** The Devil appears as a tiny little roughly penis-sized figure wrapped up completely in a white cloak—except for his pink head. Shortly thereafter this becomes something more than innuendo as the Devil jumps down into Jeanne's pants and begins pleasuring her.
%%* WidgetSeries: Widget Movie. See DerangedAnimation. This movie is ''utter fucking madness.''

When the [[AristocratsAreEvil baron]] (Masaya Takahashi) demands an absurdly high marriage tax, Jeanne (Aiko Nagayama) is a peasant woman who has just been HappilyMarried to Jean (Katsutaka Ito). The couple can't pay, so the baron sees fit to have his way with the bride.

The story follows the peasant woman Jeanne, who has just been HappilyMarried to Jean, when the [[AristocratsAreEvil village]] [[DecadentCourt nobility]] demands an absurdly high marriage tax. The couple can't pay, so the baron sees fit to have his way with the bride.

When she returns home, Jeanne is seduced by the Devil and finds herself gradually turning to witchcraft to find empowerment and freedom. At first, she and her husband are prosperous, but as famine, war, and the bubonic plague strike the rest of the village, suspicion grows, and Jeanne is eventually cast out of the village. She wins the villagers over when she offers a miracle cure for the plague, but then the nobility catches wind of her power...

Although the film was initially a commercial failure, it has gained some recognition in anime circles for its experimental animation, which is full of beautifully painted still images, Creator/GustavKlimt Art Nouveau inspired imagery and heavily stylized depictions of sex. The film also inspired Creator/KunihikoIkuhara to work in anime, and its visual and thematic influences can be seen in ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena.''

[[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/belladonna-sadness-1970s-anime-erotica-gets-u-s-theatrical-release-blu-ray-art-book-139610.html Released in 2016 with theatrical and home video re-release in North America,]] the official and Red Band trailers can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LUA3NgQN0 here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkcLMapo_Y here.]] It has also been broadcast, uncensored, late nights on TurnerClassicMovies. [[RefugeInAudacity Somehow.]]

Famous live-action Japanese actor Creator/TatsuyaNakadai provides the voice of Satan.

!! This film provides examples of:

* BrokenBird: It's more Jean that's the broken one than Jeanne. Jeanne is broken after her gang rape but quickly gets her bearings back after meeting Satan. Jean on the other hand almost strangles his wife after getting cuckolded, and from then on he's rarely sober (his behavior gets worse after Jeanne becomes the main money earner and he gets his left hand chopped off for not collecting enough taxes).

* MsFanservice: Jeanne is a beautiful girl who's never had any shoes (she's so much foot fetish material that in one scene of her gang rape, one of her rapists is playing with her toes) and is fully or partially naked more often than not. And then there's her various erotically charged encounters.

''Belladonna of Sadness'' (''Kanashimi no Belladonna'', also known as ''The Tragedy of Belladonna'') is an avant-garde anime film made in 1973, and the final installment in the Mushi Productions' ''Animerama'' trilogy that was started by ''Anime/AThousandAndOneNights''. InspiredBy Jules Michelet's non-fiction book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism_and_Witchcraft Satanism and Witchcraft]]'' (or ''La Sorciere''), the film was directed by Creator/OsamuTezuka's disciple Eiichi Yamamoto, and produced by Tezuka's studio Creator/MushiProductions.

The story follows the peasant woman Jeanne, who has just been HappilyMarried to Jean, when the [[AristocratsAreEvil village]] [[DeadlyDecadentCourt nobility]] demands an absurdly high marriage tax. The couple can't pay, so the baron sees fit to have his way with the bride.

When she returns home, Jeanne is seduced by a demon, and finds herself gradually turning to witchcraft to find empowerment and freedom. At first, she and her husband are prosperous, but as famine, war, and the bubonic plague strike the rest of the village, suspicion grows, and Jeanne is eventually cast out of the village. She wins the villagers over, when she offers a miracle cure for the plague, but then the nobility catches wind of her power...

Although the film was initially a commercial failure, it has gained some recognition in anime circles for its experimental animation, which is full of beautifully painted still images, Creator/GustavKlimt Art Nouveau inspired imagery, and heavily stylized depictions of sex. The film also inspired Creator/KunihikoIkuhara to work in anime, and its visual and thematic influences can be seen in ''Anime/RevolutionaryGirlUtena.''

* AnArmAndALeg: The lord makes Jean the official tax collector for regularly paying his taxes, but during the war years he can't squeeze anything more from the peasantry. As punishment the lord has Jean's left hand chopped off.
* AristocratsAreEvil: The baron and baroness.

* BackFromTheDead: The first villager Belladonna heals from the Black Plague, to the shock of his fellow peasants. His recovery leads the rest of the village to follow Jeanne and her witchcraft.
* BarefootPoverty: Jeanne never has any shoes, in the beginning it's because the Jean/Jeanne couple are way too poor (they're farmers with only one cow which they sold for offerings to the lord). It transitions to DoesNotLikeShoes as she's still barefoot when she becomes the town moneylender.

* BrokenAesop: The film's feminist credentials feel undercut by the constant sexual violence its heroine endures, coupled with its [[MaleGaze fondness]] for long, lingering pans up and down Jeanne's frequently naked body.

* BurnTheWitch: Jeanne's unfortunate end.

* ClothingDamage: When Jeanne flees from the village, her cloak and tunic are gradually ripped apart until she reaches the wildnerness completely nude.
* CrucifiedHeroShot: Jeanne gets executed on a burning cross-shaped stake.
* DeadlyDecadentCourt: The court of the baron and baroness.
* DealWithTheDevil: Jeanne makes a series of deals to gain increasing material and magical power, culminating in selling her soul entirely during the DerangedAnimation sequence below.
* DerangedAnimation:

** The Black Plague sequence
* DiesWideOpen: Jean, after being impaled with many spears.
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Or clothes for that matter.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: All over the film, but most strikingly the devil, who is a literal dickhead.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Jeanne is burned alive, Jean is killed during his attempt to save her, and the rest of the village is cowed into submission to the Baron.]]
* DroitDuSeigneur: What kicks off the plot. Jean is unable to pay the exorbitantly high marriage tax to the baron, leading the baron and his entire castle to gang rape Jeanne as substitute payment.

* EmeraldPower: In the movie, green is said to be the Devil's colour and after he gives her ability to make a highly desired thread to sell, she becomes the town moneylender and goes around in a green cloak which makes the townies suspicious of her.
* EroticFilm: Lots and lots of anime sex is had. One of the themes is Jeanne's awakening as a sexual creature following her DealWithTheDevil.
* EvilOverlord: The baron, a sadistic rapist who taxes his townspeople to near starvation and indulges in DroitDuSeigneur.
* GainaxEnding: As Jeanne is crucified and burned the faces of the women watching her all turn into the faces of Jeanne. Then an end title card displays a statement about how women lead the French Revolution over the image of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Leading_the_People Liberty Leading the People]]. The end.
* HappilyMarried: All of five minutes in the film before [[RapeAsDrama things go downhill]].
* HealingHerb: After her final deal with Satan, Jeanne is able to use the belladonna plant to cure all manner of illnesses, but not bring people back to life or regrow a new limb.
* HornyDevils: One that literally looks like a penis, and grows larger the more he has sex with Jeanne. That said, he's portrayed as less of a seducer and more of a thuggish rapist, little better than the baron.
* HotWitch: Jeanne is rather bothered by this, actually, wanting to be made old and ugly in standard WickedWitch style after she sells her soul and has sex with Satan. But no, the Devil leaves her hotness fully intact.

** Jean, after he tries to fight back at Jeanne's execution.

* IntimateHealing: Jeanne's apparent method of curing the Black Plague.
* [[JerkAss Jerkasses]]: Jean, the Baroness & Baron, the Page...etc.
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: The Baron receives literally no comeuppance at all for his gang rape of Jeanne, ultimately burning Jeanne at the stake, suppressing the rebellious townspeople, and continuing to reign virtually unopposed. The baroness does cheat on him with her page, causing him to murder them both, but even that doesn't seem to trouble him much]].
* TheKenBurnsEffect: LimitedAnimation extended to its logical end point, as much of the film consists of the camera panning over still drawings.

* LovePotion: A page gets Jeanne to make him a love potion so he can have sex with the baroness. It ends badly for the page and the baroness when they're caught.
* MindRape: Jeanne's encounter with the fully-grown demon in the wilderness might qualify.
* MindScrew: The symbolism and imagery can be nigh-incomprehensible at times.
* MindScrewdriver: The symbolism makes a bit more sense if you've read ''Satanism and Witchcraft''. For instance, the eight-minute "Schoolhouse Rock" sequence refers to the book's claim that as part of their DealWithTheDevil, witches received all knowledge of past, present and future.

* NoNameGiven: The members of the Baron's court.
* NudeNatureDance: Jeanne kicks off the village orgy with one of these.
* ObviouslyEvil: The baron doesn't even look like a human being, with a skull like face, empty black eyes, and ''horns''.

* RapeAsDrama: In a very symbolic but very graphic scene.
* {{Satan}}: Seduces Jeanne after she's driven from the town, and turns her into a witch.

* ShamelessFanserviceGirl: After having sex with the devil and becoming a witch, Jeanne is pretty much done with clothing as a thing.

** Despite the numerous explicit sex scenes and a distinct aversion of BarbieDollAnatomy, the animation uses free forms and contours to convey the eroticism of these scenes.
** The Devil appears as a tiny little roughly penis-sized figure wrapped up completely in a white cloak--except for his pink head. Shortly thereafter this becomes something more than innuendo as the tiny penis devil jumps down into Jeanne's pants and begins pleasuring her.
* WidgetSeries: Widget Movie. See DerangedAnimation. This movie is ''utter fucking madness.''
* WomenAreWiser: Jeanne gets the abilities of a traditional wise woman (such as plant knowledge, healing and making magical potions), she's also more knowledgable of human nature (she knows her meeting with the lord will be a trap). In contrast, her husband Jean is rather feckless and gets treated like a ButtMonkey.
* WorldOfSymbolism: Virtually every scene in the movie contains ''some'' highly symbolic reference to sex or magic or religion or...really everything.

* AristocratsAreEvil: The baron and baroness.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The page shields the baroness with a modern-day umbrella despite the Middle Age setting.

* IdiotBall: The ending requires Jeanne to grab it pretty hard, [[spoiler: as she falls for the baron's deception and marches completely alone and unarmed into his castle with no apparent backup plan. She gets burnt at the stake for her troubles]].

* MsFanService: Jeanne is a beautiful girl who's never had any shoes (she's so much foot fetish material that in one scene of her gang rape, one of her rapists is playing with her toes) and is fully or partially naked more often than not. And then there's her various erotically charged encounters.

* MsFanService: Jeanne is a beautiful girl who's never had any shoes (she's so much FootFetish material that in one scene of her gang rape, one of her rapists is playing with her toes) and is fully or partially naked more often than not. And then there's her various erotically charged encounters.

''Belladonna of Sadness'' (''Kanashimi no Belladonna'', also known as ''The Tragedy of Belladonna'') is an avant-garde anime film made in 1973, and InspiredBy Jules Michelet's non-fiction book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism_and_Witchcraft Satanism and Witchcraft]]'' (or ''La Sorciere''). The film was directed by Creator/OsamuTezuka's disciple Eiichi Yamamoto, and produced by Tezuka's studio Creator/MushiProductions.

[[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/belladonna-sadness-1970s-anime-erotica-gets-u-s-theatrical-release-blu-ray-art-book-139610.html Released in 2016 with theatrical and home video re-release in North America,]] the official and Red Band trailers can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LUA3NgQN0 here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkcLMapo_Y here.]] It has also been broadcast, uncensored, late nights on TurnerClassicMovies.

* Jerkasses: Jean, the Baroness & Baron, the Paige...etc.

[[http://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/belladonna-sadness-1970s-anime-erotica-gets-u-s-theatrical-release-blu-ray-art-book-139610.html Released in 2016 with theatrical and home video re-release in North America,]] the official and Red Band trailers can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9LUA3NgQN0 here]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkcLMapo_Y here.]]

* Jerkass:Jean, thehe Baroness and Barron,the Paige...etc.

* DownerEnding: Jeanne is burned alive, Jean is killed during his attempt to save her, and the rest of the village is cowed into submission to the Baron.

* BittersweetEnding: Depending on how one interprets the epic MindScrew of an ending, it's either this or a [[DownerEnding Downer]]. Jeanne gets burned at the stake, and Jean dies trying to rescue her, but it's heavily implied the rebellion against the upper class and social norms that she started will live on.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfanything: All over the film, but most strikingly the devil, who is a literal dickhead.

* TheSeventies: Jeanne and Jean's full hair, the trippy images derived from Art Nouveau, and the quirky folk-rock soundtrack make it pretty obvious that this was made in the early '70s.

* AnimationBump: It's rather an animation earthquake when the slide-show "animation" is suddenly replaced by a full-animated psychedelic extravaganza during the DealWithTheDevil.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Jean

''Kanashimi no Belladonna'' (literally ''Belladonna of Sadness,'' also known as ''The Tragedy of Belladonna'') is an avant-garde anime film made in 1973, and InspiredBy Jules Michelet's non-fiction book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanism_and_Witchcraft Satanism and Witchcraft]]'' (or ''La Sorciere''). The film was directed by Creator/OsamuTezuka's disciple Eiichi Yamamoto, and produced by Tezuka's studio Creator/MushiProductions.

[[redirect:Anime/KanashimiNoBelladonna]]