The Sexual Story of O (1984)

The Sexual Story of O (1984) is a Jess Franco movie from his Golden Films period, an interesting period in Franco’s career. There were two major problems with this company. The first was that they were either unable or unwilling to get their movies distributed outside of Spain. As a result the movies Franco made for them were pretty much unseen and unknown outside of Spain until they started to get released on DVD.

The second problem was that the budgets they were able to offer him were practically non-existent. This was a time when Franco was making movies with no money at all.

But there was one very good thing about Golden Films. They allowed him complete freedom. Of course if you told Franco that there was no budget but he could do what he liked then he was a very happy man. He valued artistic freedom above all else.

Pauline Réage’s novel The Story of O is rightly regarded as the classic novel of sadomasochism and one of the classics of erotic literature and Franco greatly admired the novel. On the other hand he hated Just Jaeckin’s 1975 film adaptation. When Golden Films suggested The Sexual Story of O as a title Franco was delighted by the idea.

The Sexual Story of O is very much in the mould of Franco’s many movies inspired by the Marquis de Sade, but it has to be said that these movies represented his own take on the Marquis’ philosophy. Franco was no schoolboy besotted by adolescent fantasies. He was far too intelligent and too subtle for such things. I think it’s also fair to say that Franco was too fundamentally humane and decent to accept de Sade’s philosophy uncritically. He was interested in the idea of freedom and the rejection of conventional morality but he was able to see the weaknesses in de Sade’s ideas. If you treat people as mere objects for your own pleasure you’re going to end up sad and lonely. It’s also reasonable to assume that Franco genuinely liked women too much to be able to see them as mere sexual playthings.

The movie opens with a young woman (we find out that she is an American named Odile) in one hotel room and a young couple (Mario and his wife) in another hotel room across the courtyard. They have a clear view of each other’s rooms. The couple watch Odile masturbating. She watches them making love. Mario’s wife goes to Odile’s room and suggests that she joins them.

Voyeurism is an aspect of Franco’s cinema that is often overlooked. His movies often feature sexual night-club acts, essential sex as something to be watched, and his 1974 Plaisir à trois also features a decadent couple watching a young woman masturbating alone in her room. It’s an aspect that emphasises the alienation which is a major downside of attempts to emulate de Sade’s philosophy.

It seems that this is just a harmless sexual game but appearances can be deceptive. Mario and his wife make their living by kidnapping girls and selling them to an older couple, a couple with very particular sexual tastes. The older couple, the Prince von Baky and his wife, use the girls to play out their own extreme sadomasochistic fantasies. It’s the only way the prince can get sufficiently excited. These fantasies are very extreme indeed.

Mario is starting to develop a conscience and he has started to fall in love with Odile. His wife on the other hand is fully onboard with the von Baky’s tastes for sexual decadence and cruelty.

The problem for Odile is that not only is she young and naïve, she speaks no Spanish, which means that she has no idea what she is being drawn into. 

Mario understands what is going on all too well and that newly developed conscience of his troubles him more and more, which sets up the film’s finale.

This is a Franco movie that is often contemptuously dismissed, which is rather unfair. Yes, there are a lot of sex scenes. Yes, there are plenty of exploitation elements. Yes, the sadomasochism scenes are quite strong. There is however a very definite plot. It’s a simple plot but a powerful one and it’s developed in a shocking and remorseless way. This movie is similar in some ways to his Cries of Pleasure, made a year earlier, which also deals with the loneliness and alienation to which an unrestrained pursuit of pleasure leads.

The performances are quite effective. Daniel Katz is deliciously creepy as the Prince. Carmen Carrión is good as his depraved princess. Mari Carmen Nieto is excellent as Mario’s wife. Alicia Principe’s performance as Odile works because she is supposed to be a girl who doesn’t have the slightest idea what she has blundered into and Principe certainly gets that across.

This movie at first gives the impression of being shot in a surprisingly straightforward way but don’t worry there is some definite Franco trippiness in the later stages, and the surreal dream-like sequences are effectively disturbing. The fact that the surrealism is not in evidence until late in the film gives it a much greater impact. Events are spiralling out of control and the stylistic weirdness emphasises this.

Maybe his is not a major Franco film but it is a genuine Franco film that deals with the themes that obsessed him throughout his career and Franco fans will find it rewarding.

It should be stated that 80s Franco is very different from 70s Franco, just as 70s Franco was very different from 60s Franco. 80s Franco is not the best place to start for a Franco novice. But if you’re a seasoned Francophile and you’re ready to explore his 80s work this is a movie that deserves more respect than it usually gets. Highly recommended, with that caveat in mind.