Review: The Story of O (1975)

Corinne Clery plays the title O (Is that short for Orgasm?), whose lover (a youngish Udo Kier!) wants her to attend The Chatteau, an estate where young women are chained, whipped, and made to be all-round subservient to men. She agrees to all of this, because she loves her man. After her stay here, she goes back to her regular job as a fashion photographer. However, her absolutely charming husband soon gives her away to an older aristocrat named Sir Stephen (played by Anthony Steel), whom to Kier has been like a brother. Sir Stephen makes O get her genitals pierced, exposes her bare arse in a restaurant for all to see, and acts like a misogynistic old pervert, coz…men rule! Yay! Somehow in all of this, O falls for Sir Stephen, and so it is decided that she must find a woman to replace her spot in Kier’s heart. She does this, of course, by having sex with this other woman. Yep.

Another chauvinistic offering from the man with the hopefully made up name of Just Jaeckin (director of the original “Emmanuelle” and the bizarro adventure “Gwendoline”), this 1975 adaptation of the kinky 1954 (!) Pauline Réage novel is actually off-putting if you ask me. With a plot rather resembling the first “Emmanuelle” but with frequent whippings, there’s a market for this kind of thing, sure, but I’m not really it. I was so put off by all the sexism (yes, I’m shocked too!) and the whippings that let’s face it, weren’t entirely consensual. I find it really disturbing that this completely sexist, chauvinistic, barely consensual S&M stuff has been given the gauzy, Bonnie Tyler music video/perfume commercial visual treatment. This girl clearly wasn’t really into the S&M stuff. Sure, she technically consents to all of it, but she’s only doing it out of love for her beau who insists on it (But in that oh-so European way where he makes it sound like she actually has a choice, even though she clearly doesn’t). She certainly doesn’t want to do any of this. Consenting and wanting are definitely two different things. Something just didn’t sit right with me, and I’m a pervert who frequently rails against actresses who take on clearly sexy films when they refuse to go nude for them, so I’m clearly no feminist at all. Far from it (and that’s not bragging, either. Simply the truth, love me or not). I just felt so embarrassed for poor Corinne Clery here in this role. What in the hell was she thinking taking this assignment on? It’s such a demeaning role, and I’m not at all surprised several actresses turned it down.

The best thing I can say about the film is that, although it wasn’t exactly a turn-on to me personally, it’s certainly sexier than the first “Emmanuelle” (though it does once again reinforce that Jaeckin is an arty-farty fashion photographer, not a filmmaker/storyteller- and indeed that was his former profession), and all of the performances are vastly superior to any “Emmanuelle” film. Yes, even Anthony Steel, who I’ve never seen much appeal in. He seemed to be quite ubiquitous in British films of the 50s, but I guess by this point his career had kinda crapped out. Corrine Clery does a surprisingly good job under the rather embarrassing circumstances, and a young-ish Udo Kier is here, too for all you cult cinema fans. With a full head of hair he looks weird, almost…normal even. Clery is at least to my taste, far more attractive than “Emmanuelle” star Sylvia Kristel.

This is all so…wrong. At least to my moral judgement (and moral judgement isn’t normally something I’m really about). You might think I’m barmy, especially if you’re into all this S&M stuff (it’s certainly more risqué than the recent “Fifty Shades of Grey” movie), it’s not my bag at all, especially when it doesn’t appear to be consensual. Let’s just say that if you had problems with “Fifty Shades of Grey” or found the sexual politics in the “Emmanuelle” series questionable, you’re gonna hate the ever-lovin’ shit out of this one. Oh, boy will your blood boil. It’s possibly the least feminist film of all-time. Me, I was put off by most of it, bored by its overall lack of plot, and what is it with Jaeckin outfitting actresses in his films in clothes that expose their breasts in somewhat unflattering ways? He did a similar thing in “Gwendoline”, too. There’s a reasonable amount of Sapphic action, but even so I found this a bit difficult to enjoy when some of the participants/characters didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves, either. The screenplay is by Sebastien Japrisot (“One Deadly Summer”, with Isabelle Adjani), who probably deserves as much of the blame as Jaeckin (perhaps the author of the book, who, by the way, may or may not have been a woman. The credited author is a pseudonym).  

Rating: D+