THE STORY OF O: UNTOLD PLEASURES. (2002) DIRECTED BY PHIL LEIRNESS.
WRITTEN BY DOMINIQUE AURY, MARC CHAPMAN AND NADEJDA KLEIN.
STARRING DANIELLE CIARDI, MAX PARRISH, NEIL DICKSON, MICHELLE RUBEN AND KATHERINE RANDOLPH.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
“Did you like it when I slapped you?” he asks her.
‘More than I should have,” she replies shyly.
Well now, you could do worse than spend an evening goggling at this sexy movie that claims to make FIFTY SHADES OF GREY look like playtime on Balamory. I definitely enjoyed it and only wish that other films would approach the sticky subject of sadomasochism with the same openness and gusto.
It’s based on a French erotic novel from 1954 by a lady called Anne Desclos. She hid her identity by using pen-names such as Pauline Reage and Dominique Aury, but her sexy secret’s been out for some time. She revealed it herself, in fact, in an interview in 1993 when she was eighty-six years old.
Google a picture of Anne Desclos. She looks the very picture of the polite lady novelist, or an Agatha Christie-type writer of detective stories. Who would have though such filth was fermenting in her cardigan-covered bosom? Not me, that’s for sure!
I’m not sure where the story is set in the film. It could be America, or France, because of the chateaus and stuff. O is the lead character. Yes, her parents actually named her O! It’s the shortest name you can conceive of and it seems to represent, in this instance, all the o-shaped ‘holes’ which a young lady possesses and which can be plugged or stuffed in different ways by men, the superior sex. Well, I bet you weren’t expecting that, lol.
O is an attractive young woman in her late twenties. She is a photographer compiling an avant-garde book of images glorifying women’s sexuality. Her model is a stunning Russian woman called Jacqueline who asks her how she can make a book about women’s sexual desires and needs and fantasies if she hasn’t even explored her own fantasies yet…?
One time, during sex with her tennis coach boyfriend Rene, Rene slaps O on the buttocks, then notices that her sexual excitement subsequently is nearly off the chart. He gets a sneaky idea, which culminates in his driving the curious and blindfolded O to a chateau out of town which houses the strange and mysterious being known as ‘Sir Stephen…’
Stephen takes to the feisty, pretty photographer immediately. He’ll finance her book for her, so she won’t have to worry about a thing financially, in return for just one teensy-weensy little thing.
She’ll be his sex slave for a total of seven (drunken) nights, and will do anything he requires her to do, whether for himself or any other male who happens to be around; Rene the boyfriend, perhaps, or one of the no-doubt well-hung male valets and servants who occupy the chateau.
The themes of the movie are love, male domination over the female and female submission to the almighty male. In the book, O is taught to never wear panties, or anything else that might prevent her from being permanently available for oral, vaginal and anal intercourse.
She- and other women in the house- submit to being naked and whipped savagely with a riding crop by a massive topless man dressed terrifyingly like an old-time torturer for the Inquisition or an executioner. She is pierced and branded, tied up and chained, and her anus is widened by the insertion of increasingly large plugs. Nice work if you can get it, lol.
Highlights of the film include a night of graceful Sapphic love as O finally takes the ravishing Jacqueline to bed. Jacqueline’s sister Natalie turns up, wanting to be a photographer just like O, and O tries to help her, but I wasn’t too pushed about Natalie at first, feeling that she didn’t add much to the mix.
But then Sir Stephen tells O that he’ll grant her wish for him to pay for Natalie’s education. Naturally, though, there are conditions, and it won’t just be a simple whipping this time. O nervously listens as her benefactor talks of his conditions. Will she accept his offer, or will there be too many strings attached this time…? Oh, the suspense!
I think this film is more explicit than FIFTY SHADES OF GREY. I like that it tackles the subject of female submission, and portrays a woman who, shyly at first but then more confidently, learns to ask for what she wants; to be dominated and beaten by a man. Yes, the feminists would go crackers over this sentiment, but it’s what the girl wants…
There are so many men nowadays who want to be dominated by females that that’s often all we hear about. But not all women want to strut about in thigh-high, glossy black leather boots, shouting orders to the man grovelling naked at her feet with a ball gag in his mouth. Some women just want to be women, and they want for men to be men, if that’s not too much to ask for in 2023. Great film. Love it.
sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris 