Highly Overrated But Still Good

Better Late Then Never

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Not as instantly likable as Trans-Europ-Express but just as beautifully photographed, this time in colour, and if we do not follow every nuance at least we believe the writer/director does. So there is no suggestion that we are being led down any garden path, just that Robbe-Grillet's obsessions are maybe not quite the same as our own. This seemed fine at first and as with the aforementioned film, I was happy enough with the various 'truths' being offered and didn't panic. As things become more religious, however, with suggestions of witchcraft, I felt myself becoming more distant. This may work differently for others but I just wasn't interested enough in that side of things. Priests, nuns and catholic guilt are all very fine but are not one of my concerns. Has to be said that the gorgeous ladies here are perfectly happy to remove their clothes and the usual S&M trappings we associate with the director are much to the fore. Not all bad then.

SPOLILERS...kind of.There is so much going on in this movie it's hard to know where to start. The key is a line where the girl's lawyer says, "All who approach you are perverts, insane. But it's all in your little mind." Looked at in that context, the "plot" means nothing since it's more about thoughts than action.That said, the central character, called only "The Prisoner" is arrested for the murder of her lover, Nora. The two are in a Domme/sub, BDSM relationship with The Prisoner portrayed as the Dominant.Many characters take on double meanings. The police, it seems to me, represent the author, asking supposedly meaningless questions that would only make sense if you were creating a rich background life for a character such as The Prisoner. One of the cops, rather than documenting the crime, blatantly records the themes of the movie: "Themes of broken bottles". Bottles stand in for the wombs and this refers the broken mother/daughter relationship between......The Prisoner and Nora. Nora is her mother. The same cop that records themes rather than evidence, has a scene where he recites words while writing and researching something (probably the screenplay being filmed) in the bed Nora was killed in. This is crosscut with The Prisoner being show objects and free associating. The cop says "parricide". The Prisoner says "disassociation".Throughout the movie, Nora seems the submissive except for one scene - when the Prisoner sells herself to a man looking for deviant sex. She takes them up to the room. Nora lounges in a window seat. Stepping back, the actual "plot" revolves around Mother Nora selling and sexually abusing her daughter.Her court-appointed lawyer (read "protector") is played by the same actress that plays Nora. At first, Nora acts like the mother The Prisoner wants/needs - strict and no-nonsense. But, The Prisoner's insanity seduces Lawyer/Mom/Nora, or at least that's the scenario The Prisoner dreams up. The Prisoner ends up killing Lawyer/Mom/Nora in very similar circumstances.Plot-wise, the police find that Nora was NOT killed by the prisoner. They come to tell The Prisoner this and find The Lawyer dead. "We'll have to start over", the cop says.What the director presents to us is a portrait of The Prisoner, deep in the clutches of her disassociation, creating a world that's easier for her to live in - where she controls her mother, dressing her as a manikin and, just by thinking about it, causes people to die. It's complex, gorgeous and, if not actual porn, has enough nudity to satisfy that requirement if that's what you're looking for.

A young woman is interviewed by police, judges and clergy who may not all be real over possibly murdering her flatmate. She makes art on naked bodies and mannequins and is probably a prostitute but also might be a witch. That's almost all the plot there is, all you'll get from me at any rate but suffice to say, those looking for conventional narrative and clear cut explanations will not have a good time here. This here is more of a delving into the mysteries of mind and memory, an exploration of fractured mind framed in the trappings of Euro-sploitation, its time-line treading forwards, backwards and even sideways from its central bloody death, the effect being that past, present and future become as one, the film itself becomes an image of mind trapped in misgiving and illusion. Its tricksy stuff and can be daunting but the key is in the source, writer/director Alain Robbe-Grillet is generally best known for writing Last Year In Marienbad and while Successive Slidings of Pleasure may be less profound than that marvel of philosophical mystery it shares in its concerns and structure of film as headstate rather than means of surveying from outside. It is also marginally more penetrable than the earlier film, with its various flashbacks and repeated images acting as useful clues to orient the audience in the journey. Not that its symbolism or connections are all that easy to piece together, but they serve as a whole to create a relatively cohesive if slippery mind image at the close of play, a print on the brain that doesn't necessarily require many viewings to interpret and report upon. The major difference from Last Year In Marienbad though is the sleaze. Sure, there aren't any Franco style cooch zooms, but the leading lady (stunning Anicee Alvina) is always seductive and often nude, even painting her body to print red upon the floor or smear herself across white walls. She paints the body of her flatmate (Olga Georges-Picot, also stunning) too and together they get up to some winningly strange behaviour including a breathtaking scene involving eggs and a truly bizarre bit of doll mutilation. The bloodier bits are eyebrow raising as well, sensual but never gratuitous. At times things get a little too pretentious, with one scene towards the end a real groaner (coming across as the work of an imbecile parody of the avant garde) and the film as a whole a tad overlong, but mostly this is really splendid stuff. Speech delivered straight to camera, formal body language, terrific sound design with mismatched soundtrack sometimes illustrating thought and other times just letting scenes bleed into each other, its a great trip for sense and mind. Probably something of a niche audience film, but if you fall into that spot on the Venn diagram where philosophers and kooky sleaze-hounds converge, this is a must see. 8/10.

A young woman is interrogated by the police and the judges,suspected of being a modern witch.The girl who shared her apartment has been found dead with a pair of scissors impaled through her heart,as she lay attached to the bedposts.Apparently,the girl does have powers,to make all people around her fall prey to her spell,glissing progressively into desire,lust and the unknown.Alain Robbe-Grillet has to be one of the most innovative French novelists and film-makers.His "Successive Slidings of Pleasure" is a wonderful film that contains plenty of surreal moments and lots of sleaze.The movie itself is truly unique and bizarre,so fans of unusual European art-house exploitation won't be disappointed.So if you are a fan of Jean Rollin's works give this one a look.This is my first journey into Alain Robbe-Grillet's visions and I'm highly impressed!