The Story of O (1975), Blu-Ray review

The Story of O is one of the notorious classics of 1970s European erotic cinema. It has the distinction of having been banned in Britain for 25 years. Just Jaeckin has scored a massive hit with his first film, Emmanuelle, and The Story of O cemented his reputation as a master of classy very expensive-looking softcore erotica with an arty feel.

The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Pauline Reage, a novel that is considered to be one of the landmarks of literary sadomasochism.

The movie has more going for it than sadomasochism. It’s a grandiose exercise in cinematic decadence and it’s extraordinarily lush. You might be put off by the sadomasochism element but that’s not quite what the movie is about. It’s about sexual obsession and it’s about romantic obsession. It’s a love story. An unconventional love story certainly, but still a love story.

The opening sequence establishes the mood of opulence, decadence, artiness and forbidden sexual pleasures. A young woman known only as O (Corinne Cléry) is take by her lover Rene (Udo Kier) to the château at Roissy where she is to be trained in the delights of bondage and discipline. It is made very clear to O (and to the audience) that she is doing this of her own free will. She is free to leave at any time.

Soon after her arrival she gets her first taste of the whip, and of the humiliation and submission that is part of her training. She not only has to submit to the whip, she must submit to the sexual advances of all the men at the château, including the servants. Including Pierre, with whom there develops a kind of mutual infatuation.

The early part of the movie that takes place at Roissy has a dream-like feel to it. Oddly enough when O returns from Roissy to the real world the movie becomes much stranger and paradoxically more dream-like. We feel like we’ve actually gone further into the world of the fantastic, or perhaps that reality is more like fantasy than fantasy is. Rene gives O to Sir Stephen, who is in a way Rene’s brother although he is and he isn’t. Rene has the idea that by giving O to other men he is proving his ownership of her but as other characters enter the story it becomes harder to say who belongs to whom.

Corinne Cléry is certainly gorgeous and I think her performance works pretty well. She conveys O’s conflicted feelings pretty well - her enjoyment of her terror and the pleasure she gets from her pain (pleasure that is as much emotional as physical). Udo Kier is as weird and disturbing as usual which makes him deal as O’s lover. Anthony Steel gives a suitably enigmatic performance as Sir Stephen. This is a film that requires slightly off performances in order to work and that’s what all the cast members deliver. These are characters whose motives are at times strange and shadowy.

The 70s was the golden age of cinematic artporn. The idea that a movie could combine art with pornography may seem bizarre today but it was taken seriously at that time. For a   brief moment it seemed to be possible. The Story of O was one of the major 70s artporn films.

But to see this movie as porn is to misunderstand director Just Jaeckin’s intentions since he draws a very sharp distinction between porn and erotica  and he was aiming to make erotica. You could ague that which category a film falls into is essentially in the eye of the beholder but I’m inclined to agree with Jaeckin that the distinction is real and important.

Jaeckin also sees the movie as a fantasy, something which is made quite clear in the opening sequence which we see in two different versions. Which one is the true version? That’s like asking which version of a dream is the true one. Jaeckin maintains the dream-like atmosphere. We witness events that seem incongruous and unlikely but they make their own kind of sense in the context of the film. To ask whether things make sense in the normal sense of the word is to miss the point.

There are several Blu-Ray versions available, some of which have mixed reputations. The one I have is the German Blu-Ray from Filmconfect (with the title Geschichte der O) and it’s excellent. It looks superb. There are multiple language and subtitle options. One thing that should be pointed out about is that there’s nothing wrong with the English language version. In any case the German Blu-Ray gives you the choice. There’s also an interview (in English) with Just Jaeckin.

You may respond to this movie in various ways. You may decide it’s just softcore porn with a veneer of artiness. You may decide it’s pretentious nonsense. You may consider it to be an erotic classic. You might consider it to be a masterpiece of high camp or even kitsch. You may even think that it really does succeed in blending art with erotica. Or you may simply be intoxicated by its visual lushness. I’m inclined to take a favourable view of the film. It’s excessive and erotic (very erotic) and strange and hallucinatory but it works for me. Highly recommended.