Venus in Furs (AKA Paroxismus, 1969)

Venus in Furs (AKA Paroxismus) was released in 1969 and is one of Jess Franco’s most satisfying films. It’s a dream-like hallucinogenic movie that plays havoc with reality and illusion. It was a British/Italian/West German co-production and it’s also one of the most impressive movies to be made under the auspices of notorious English producer Harry Alan Towers.

Jazz trumpeter Jimmy Logan (James Darren) finds the body of a girl on the beach in Istanbul. She is Wanda (played by Towers’ real-life wife Maria Rohm), a girl with whom he had become slightly obsessed. Wanda and her friends were into some fairly weird sexual stuff. Friends like Ahmed (Klaus Kinski) and photographer Olga (Margaret Lee). And Percival Kapp (Denis Price).

Two years later, in Rio, Jimmy meets Wanda. Is it the same woman? She certainly looks the same. He becomes even more obsessed by her, much to the sorrow of his girlfriend Rita (Barbara McNair).

Jimmy and Wanda return to Istanbul. Olga and Ahmed and the rest of their crowd are still there. Olga is obsessed by Wanda although whether she’s motivated by guilt or lust is difficult to say. Ahmed’s obsession may be somewhat different.

The Turkish police are interested in Wanda. The Brazilian police are interested in well. Of course Inspector Kaplan of the Turkish police knows that Wanda is dead, but he’d still like to talk to her.

An obvious question that is going to occur to the viewer is whether Jimmy (who provides us with a voiceover narration) might be an unreliable narrator. In fact one might wonder if Jimmy’s ideas about what is going on have any connection with reality. One might wonder how in touch with reality any of the characters are. Or whether they exist. Or whether anything that happens is real. Of course it’s also possible that all of it is real. The answer to all of these questions are in fact revealed at the end, in a fairly satisfying manner.

One might also suspect that what appears to be a straightforward linear narrative is really linear at all. Franco was a jazz aficionado and was rather interested in the idea of structuring movies like jazz improvisations.

The title Venus in Furs obviously comes from the novella by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (from whose name the term masochism is derived). It’s not in any sense an adaptation of the novel but Wanda was the name of the woman in the novella. And she does wear furs. There are certainly plenty of hints of masochism in the relationships of both men and women with the film’s Wanda.

To complicate things the title was not chosen by Franco and the distributors made changes to the film (which was pretty much standard practice with low-budget European films of this era).

This is one of Franco’s most visually impressive and hypnotic movies. He comes up with some suitably striking images without resorting to too many cinematic tricks.

This is also one of his most technically polished films. While Franco fans are generally unconcerned by his occasional technical blemishes that criticism cannot be levelled at this production. It looks professional and it benefits from the generous (by the standards of Franco films) budget. It’s also much tighter in plot terms than most of his movies.

It also benefits from one of the strongest casts he ever managed to assemble. James Darren is very good as Jimmy, a character who is both sympathetic and at times unsympathetic. Maria Rohm is extraordinary. This may be the finest achievement of her career. Klaus Kinski manages to be sinister and weird and pathetic and generally disturbing, as only Kinski could be.

The soundtrack is an odd but successful mix of jazz and pop, courtesy of Manfred Mann (who makes a cameo appearance as a jazz musician). Franco loved music as much as he loved film and in Venus in Furs the two are combined seamlessly. James Darren was cast partly because he really was a fine trumpet player and having an actual musician playing the lead rôle was a smart choice.

While Franco liked surrealism and indulged in it from time to time curiously enough he wasn’t happy with the overt surrealist touches in this movie (which were forced on him). He wanted the film to be as realistic as possible. Given that the entire film has the feel of a dreamscape his instincts are probably correct. The overt surrealism is an extra layer that isn’t needed.

The beach scenes are strongly reminiscent of those found in most of Jean Rollin’s films. In fact this movie bears some stylistic similarity to Rollin’s The Iron Rose.

Blue Underground’s DVD came out quite a while ago but it offers a good anamorphic transfer plus interviews with both Franco and Maria Rohm. Franco reveals some intriguing thing about the film, such as the fact that he got the original idea from legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.

Venus in Furs is one of the two or three best movies Franco ever made. Very highly recommended.