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The Baron is the main antagonist of the 1973 psychological Japanese animated film Belladonna of Sadness. He is the tyrannical and greedy ruler of a rural town in medieval France.
He was voiced by the late Masaya Takahashi.
Appearance[]
The Baron is depicted as a skeletal man with brown hair, and empty eyes. Three bone-like horns extend from the front, back, and sides of the top of his skull-like forehead. He wears a large orange robe, black belt and red bird-like talons.
Biography[]
Shortly after the marriage between Jean and Jeanne, they are escorted to the Baron's castle where they are forced to pay the marriage tax. The Baron rebukes Jean's mortgage from their cows, claiming that they will have to sell ten cows to fulfill the marriage tax. He and his wife, the Baroness, order that they will only accept the marriage if a droit du seigneur is assigned. Jean is forcefully removed from the castle while Jeanne is brutally gang raped by the Baron and his courtiers.
Later on, the Baron declares war for more land, forcing his villagers to pay higher taxes while hiring Jean as a tax collector. Despite having reduced the entire village of their currency, the Baron is displeased with the little money and punishes Jean by cutting his left hand off. Meanwhile, Jeanne is visited by a spirit calling himself the Devil, who grants her fortune by raping her in his offer to aid her in claiming revenge.
Several years later, the Baron returns from his war victoriously, where he discovers that Jeanne has become the wealthiest unit of the town by taking out a loan from a hoarder and establishes her own financial trade. The Baron and Baroness accuse Jeanne of conducting witchcraft and rally the villagers against her for deceiving them, resulting in her being assaulted as Jean refuses to open the door for her. Afterwards, the Baron orders Jeanne be burnt to the stake, but she flees into the forest.
Jeanne makes a pact with the Devil who gives her magical powers. By the time she returns to the village, the bubonic plague has infected the villagers. Using her powers, Jeanne creates a cure for the plague, and the villagers once again rush to her aid and start worshiping her in rites involving parties and orgies. She was then beckoned by the page of the Baron to help him with his crush on the Baroness. Jeanne gives him a potion that makes the Baroness fall in love with him. However, the Baron discovers the page and his wife in the middle of making love and murders both of them.
Aware of Jeanne's witchcraft, the Baron has Jeanne rallied her to his castle. He offers her a position as the second most powerful noble of his land in exchange for her cure of the plague. Jeanne refuses, claiming that she wants the entire world instead. Infuriated, the Baron imprisons Jeanne before having her burnt on the stake. Jean tries to save her, only to be killed by the Baron's soldiers. The couples' deaths enrage the villagers, with their faces symbolically transforming into Jeanne's. Centuries later, Jeanne's influences would initiate the French Revolution.