Warning: possible spoilers ahead.
I was perusing the shelves at the local video hire store when I came across their only erotic film, Histoire d'O. My curiosity was aroused (but little else) as I recognised this title as one of the few films still banned in the UK.
Someone at school had an illicit copy of this most infamous of erotic novels and it was probably the most widely read book at the place. The novelist Graham Greene called it `a rare thing, a pornographic novel well written and without a trace of obscenity', which is not quite how I would sum it up. The book purports to be neither case history nor fantasy, presumably a melange of the two. It is also interesting to note that the author is a woman. Let me point out that I am not into the S&M scene but am a regular guy who has an open mind and no big hang-ups about sexuality.
The eponymous heroine willingly submits herself to all manner of masochistic humiliation, couplings with unknown men and mutilation of her body supposedly all in the name of love. Like the book, the film deals with a hard-core subject in a soft-core manner. The book is full of euphemisms for body parts like `his sex' or `my belly' and thus uses no vulgar words whilst the subject remains distinctly hard-core. Even the dialogue contains no swear words. As you might expect the film has an abundance of female nudity but, surprisingly, not one glimpse of a genital. The lighting is soft and atmospheric, the music swelling, the sets and costumes sumptuous, as all befits the director of the popular but mediocre Emmanuel. Histoire d'O, filmed in 1975, also contains some now gloriously camp women's fashion, the kind of thing you'd find on the cover of a contemporary Roxy Music album.
The film seems to follow the book fairly closely even showing the two alternative beginnings. Within 15 minutes O is tied naked to a whipping post (being flailed with what is clearly a bit of limp string). There follows a further half dozen whipping scenes complete with dubbed orgasmic moaning. It is undoubtedly this S&M subject matter which has the film banned in the UK in what would otherwise be an un-noteworthy seventies soft-core flick.
Throughout the film O is offered the opportunity to refuse various painful and/ or humiliating activities all of which she declines. It is this plot device, her willingness, that enables Histoire d'O to assume an air of respectability and thus attract this expensive production. She enters into the S&M regime initially because her lover wishes it and she wants, more than anything, to please him; later she desires its dubious pleasures for herself. Yet her character, a middleclass, young professional, never seems to justify this warped desire or the decisions she makes with anything approaching credibility. Therefore, as the film continues, her willingness to accept seems to me, to be a progressively transparent excuse for the filmmakers to track this descent into depravity.
Indeed Histoire d'O is a rare thing, a hard-core subject treated in a soft-core manner but a film which ultimately fails to please - 4 out of 10.
I was perusing the shelves at the local video hire store when I came across their only erotic film, Histoire d'O. My curiosity was aroused (but little else) as I recognised this title as one of the few films still banned in the UK.
Someone at school had an illicit copy of this most infamous of erotic novels and it was probably the most widely read book at the place. The novelist Graham Greene called it `a rare thing, a pornographic novel well written and without a trace of obscenity', which is not quite how I would sum it up. The book purports to be neither case history nor fantasy, presumably a melange of the two. It is also interesting to note that the author is a woman. Let me point out that I am not into the S&M scene but am a regular guy who has an open mind and no big hang-ups about sexuality.
The eponymous heroine willingly submits herself to all manner of masochistic humiliation, couplings with unknown men and mutilation of her body supposedly all in the name of love. Like the book, the film deals with a hard-core subject in a soft-core manner. The book is full of euphemisms for body parts like `his sex' or `my belly' and thus uses no vulgar words whilst the subject remains distinctly hard-core. Even the dialogue contains no swear words. As you might expect the film has an abundance of female nudity but, surprisingly, not one glimpse of a genital. The lighting is soft and atmospheric, the music swelling, the sets and costumes sumptuous, as all befits the director of the popular but mediocre Emmanuel. Histoire d'O, filmed in 1975, also contains some now gloriously camp women's fashion, the kind of thing you'd find on the cover of a contemporary Roxy Music album.
The film seems to follow the book fairly closely even showing the two alternative beginnings. Within 15 minutes O is tied naked to a whipping post (being flailed with what is clearly a bit of limp string). There follows a further half dozen whipping scenes complete with dubbed orgasmic moaning. It is undoubtedly this S&M subject matter which has the film banned in the UK in what would otherwise be an un-noteworthy seventies soft-core flick.
Throughout the film O is offered the opportunity to refuse various painful and/ or humiliating activities all of which she declines. It is this plot device, her willingness, that enables Histoire d'O to assume an air of respectability and thus attract this expensive production. She enters into the S&M regime initially because her lover wishes it and she wants, more than anything, to please him; later she desires its dubious pleasures for herself. Yet her character, a middleclass, young professional, never seems to justify this warped desire or the decisions she makes with anything approaching credibility. Therefore, as the film continues, her willingness to accept seems to me, to be a progressively transparent excuse for the filmmakers to track this descent into depravity.
Indeed Histoire d'O is a rare thing, a hard-core subject treated in a soft-core manner but a film which ultimately fails to please - 4 out of 10.