I Am Frigid... Why? (1972)

I Am Frigid... Why? was a follow-up by Max Pécas to his 1971 hit I Am a Nymphomaniac. Pécas later admitted that he made a big mistake with the title. I Am a Nymphomaniac sounded sexy and fun. I Am Frigid... Why? doesn’t sound like fun at all. In fact it sounds like a terribly serious Danish sex hygiene film. It failed to equal the commercial success of the previous film.

Pécas made a series of stylish erotic movies during the 60s and 70s some of which were distributed in the United States by Radley Metzger. Which is appropriate. They have a slightly similar aesthetic and are both filmmakers who mix art and eroticism.

I Am Frigid... Why? is the story of Doris (Sandra Julien), a gardener’s daughter from the provinces. We know right from the start why she is frigid, and she knows as well. She was raped.

After boarding school she meets a man and falls in love with him but it just doesn’t happen for her in the bedroom. He tries to be understanding for a while, until he finds a more willing and exciting bed partner.

In Paris she tries to start a new life, and finds herself drawn into a world of decadence.

She becomes involved with a woman, but still no bedroom joy.

Then she becomes a call-girl, in the belief that being frigid will boost her career.

Eventually she finds a psychiatrist. It’s not that she needs to know why she has this problem. She needs to know how to fix it. And he may be pointing her in the right direction. She needs to find the right man, the man meant for her, the man she is destined to love. There are a couple of candidates, and in both cases there are reasons why things might not work out.

The lovely Sandra Julien gives a fine performance as a woman who craves love more than sexual pleasure but believes that you cannot have one without the other.

The erotic scenes are reasonably well executed and I think Pécas was aiming for the same arty erotic vibes as Radley Metzger (although Metzger did it better). The psychedelic freak-out sex scenes are rather cool although the slapstick sex scene I cringe-inducing.

I love late 1960s/early 1970s euro-decadence. It’s something the Italians did particularly well, especially Umberto Lenzi and Massimo Dallamano. Pécas demonstrated that the French could play that game as well.

I love the night-club scene with the giant fish tank full of girls.

There are some delightfully groovy moments and some hints of psychedelia. And lava lamps! Doris’s Paris apartment is just so incredibly early 70s, but in a good way.

This is a movie that tries to be an art movie and an exploitation movie and a psychological melodrama and it does so with mixed success but it’s an interesting attempt.

This is another movie that could not be made today. It’s a movie that suggests that black-and-white moral judgments are simplistic and unworkable when you’re dealing with real people.

Mondo Macabro have presented both I Am a Nymphomaniac and I Am Frigid... Why? on a single Blu-Ray. Both movies look pretty good.

I Am a Nymphomaniac is the better film but they’re both worth a look and the Blu-Ray is a very worthwhile purchase.

I’ve reviewed a much earlier Max Pécas movie, Daniella By Night (1961), a spy thriller romance staring Elke Sommer and the excellent classy sophisticated juvenile delinquent movie Sweet Violence (1962), again with Elke Sommer.