A different way of telling a story

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I'm totally sorry for the 2 hours, I lost watching this movie. If I would have watched a porno, I surely wouldn't regret so much. The movie begins with two lovers sitting on the back sit of a car. After a few minutes, the guy let his lover to be raped and f.... by every other guy in the film. He only kisses her on cheek and introduces her to the next guy. He doesn't even touch her fiancée. In which world do these aliens live? You couldn't even find any ugly old bitch to be behaved like the hot actress in this film. Lots of people raped her, tortured her, whipped her and she only obeyed!! That was nonsense. They are like robots. It is not even arousing. Listen to me, watch a porno instead!

I'm not kidding, whenever there's two people on-screen in this, there's a pretty solid chance they'll strip and/or do it. Oh, I'm not really complaining, albeit it does get to be excessive. This and its 1984 sequel were on sale in a box-set(which, for some reason, promised me that it would contain "the full television series", yes, in those words), and this appears to be something of a cult-favorite. The DVD came with the French Uncut(and that is the language most commonly spoken in this, the other two dip in and out occasionally) and the English version. This is a review of the first-mentioned; I can't comment on what is censored in the other one. The running time, sans the short ending credits, is 100 minutes. This is about S&M, and thus about power struggles and love. The exploration of those isn't half bad, and this isn't as pretentious as one might fear. A woman identified only by the initial O is taken to a castle by her boyfriend for her "training". Yes, this can be misogynistic; maybe the bondage and whippings were the full extent of crossing of boundaries that they were willing to go. Perhaps it was a choice. I don't know. The production values are average, and this is largely kitsch. With that said, it holds several cool images, and there is good erotica to be found in the pile. The acting is reasonable; Udo Kier is enjoyable to watch as always, I think this is the first time I heard him speak a foreign tongue. As far as the plot goes, this is fine, and certainly has both beginning and conclusion. The pace is awkward at times, and it can certainly drag at points. There is just about constant female nudity, including full frontal, and a ton of sexual content in this. I recommend this to anyone interested, be it for the allure or curiosity about the controversy this caused. 6/10

One of the hardest things to do for me is watch a film adapted from a novel I have read. Sadly, one is often expecting more and left with less, and for this reason I resisted watching this movie for many many years. But I can say, the purist might easily find many faults, indeed I had, but as a film I can respect it and recommend it as a good film about romance, titillation and for its time a bold attempt to capture a complex and controversial novel on film.The casting was mostly superb. Each main character was believable, even if they did not fully walk off the pages so to speak. As the title character, Corinne Clery physically fulfilled the part of O, and I found her to have delivered a lovely rendering of the character, as the other actors seemed to also achieve.The Story of O is a love story, and at bottom I think the film artfully delivered a good romance movie. I expected bad pornography but was very pleased with the it, certainly it has some kitsch and the S&M might offend some, but even that actually gets delivered rather gingerly and I thought respectfully. Perhaps that is my greatest concern with the film, that it gently tells a hard story, that it masks what should have been unmasked, but it is unfair to pommel the film over that because I am not certain the real story could have been told on film even in France.It is respectful criticism that I only fault the film for drifting from the story on points that I feel cause the film to become more about filming than storytelling. I also must say that the film at times was too literal from the novel and seemed to lose some of the context that I say this in recognition that the novel is not an easy story to convey because it is subject to a lot of interpretation by the reader.I think the more tragic ending of the book would not have served this film, the apparent happy ending for O and Rene and Sir Stephan makes this film its own interpretation, one I can respect and even enjoy.I recommend a reading of the book to any viewer and feel that if one can view how O is pursuing uninhibited and unconditional love, even at great sacrifice, then both book and movie might have greater impact than a visage of Ms. Clery's lovely body and some kinky overlays of Sadomasochism.

Histoire d'O (1975) * out **** Directed by Just Jaeckin With Corinne Clery and Udo Kier Jaeckin don't give us any pleasure with this pretentious film about Clery as a woman that do anything for his lover Kier, who ask only for sexual humiliation as prove of her love. Non erotic and kind of repetitive based on the best selling novel of Dominique Aury; its a pity with that decent soundtrack and that beautiful photography. Empty and boring; skip this one.