Belladonna of Sadness

is a 1973 Japanese adult animated art film produced by the animation studio Mushi Production and distributed by Nippon Herald Films. It is the third and final entry in Mushi Production's adult-oriented Animerama trilogy, following A Thousand and One Nights (1969) and Cleopatra (1970); It follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman who makes a faustian deal with the devil after she is raped by the local nobility on the night of her wedding day. Although its initial release was a commercial failure and caused the studio to go bankrupt, the film was considered a cult film in retrospective years. It is notable for its erotic, religious, violent, and psychedelic imagery, with its tackling themes of misogyny, feudal oppression, moral depravity, rebellion, and witch-hunting. Plot Jeanne and Jean are newlyweds in a rural village in medieval France. On Jeanne's wedding night, she is brutally gang-raped in a ritual deflowering by the local baron and his courtiers. She returns to Jean terrified, and he attempts to calm her by saying they can start over from that moment. Shortly after they embrace, however, Jean strangles Jeanne to a state of unconsciousness. Ashamed, he flees outside their home. That night, Jeanne begins to see visions of a phallic-headed spirit who promises her power. The spirit tells her it heard her calling for help, and that it can grow as big and powerful as she wants it to. As a result, the couple's fortunes rise even as famine strikes the village, and the baron raises taxes to fund his war effort. Formerly exhausted by his life of menial labor, Jean is elevated to the role of tax collector. However, the baron cuts off Jean's hand as punishment when he cannot extract enough money from the village, leaving him miserable and drunk.