Histoire d'O 2 - Ritorno a Roissy

Yet another sequel than cannot stand up to the original, this sequel to the Story of O can at least boost some interesting visuals, regarding sets and costumes. However, the visuals are empty, meaningless - there is no vision behind it. The submission and domination appear less serious and menacing than in the original, and more playful and almost politically correct. While this may make the film less objectionable, it also makes it pointless; it remains a piece of 1980s' hedonism.

Sometimes you wonder how a film gets approved for financing. With this one, you could pitch it by saying, Let's put "Story of O" in the title and lots of people will watch it. Doesn't matter what the film is about. You could say, Let's tell a story about the downfall of a prideful man, sort of a morality play, and lots of people would watch it. Or you could say what you meant to say all along, Let's make a movie overflowing with naked women that has a story line we'll think of later to make it all hang together, and lots of people will watch it. Now we're talking.

This film is not in any way an adaptation of Return to the Château, Pauline Reage's sequel to her famous novel. It does borrow the title character, O, played by the stunning Sandra Wey. O is an instrument of destruction here, hired by a group of businessmen to ruin the life of a rival who is attempting a takeover. The weapon she uses is sex. O takes Carole James, playing the businessman's daughter, to the château to have her initiated into O-dom in a way quite reminiscent of O's. That means we get to see the fully-equipped James naked a lot, and that's a good thing. O then hires out the seduction of the businessman's wife and his son, who bats from the other side of the plate, and let's not leave out the guard dog. No kidding. The dog. When she has compromised everyone in the family, O turns the family onto each other to complete the ruination of her victim. Roll credits.

This movie is filmed in a European style, which means sexuality is handled much differently than an American film company would do it. It's softcore, but the simulated sex scenes have a hardcore feel. Like I mentioned before, there are naked women everywhere doing European things. The actors move the story along well enough, no one chews up the scenery, though there are a few ridiculous Western accents in the dubbed soundtrack. This is a decent sex film that has a story easy to ignore while you wait for the good parts, which fortunately come by fairly often. Recommended.

I feel dirty. Not because of the genre... I knew that. No, on account of the content. Just because you're making a flick about S&M doesn't mean it has to be so seedy. As I explained in my review of the first one, I got the two on sale in a box-set(it was a deal, I swear...! For the original, anyway) which, inexplicably, claimed to hold "the entire television series", and the covers misrepresented the running time on both(100 minutes for this one) as an hour and a half, and the images on it were from the 1975 one, with one exception(that being the human chandelier in this; a woman hanging upside down, her hands holding a light-bulb that is switched on, a concept that makes no sense, as she would pass out from the blood all going to her head, and she would burn her hands on the heating ball in her hands... I get that it's a pain/pleasure thing, but you couldn't do it for very long, it honestly seems like far too much trouble for relatively little other than a picture that might stay with you). In fact, that's the one positive I can say for this, as it isn't particularly erotic; it can boast a handful of visuals that stand out, and a few of them are even attractive. None of them(as with everything else in this) have any emotional impact, however. A lot of this is weird, plain and simple. Like how the wife suddenly speaks Spanish for no readily apparent reason, or how she is so determined to prove that she doesn't care about her husband doing her that she does her nails as he does(!). That's outright silly. As another reviewer points out, the submission and domination(kudos to them for letting the women achieve that some in this, though) doesn't feel threatening(frankly, now and then, it's comical, as with other aspects of this that really shouldn't be). The version of this that I've got was made with them speaking English(seriously, the lip movements match up, unlike with the French dub also on the disc), in spite of the fact that every member of the cast(clearly all chosen based on how comfortable they were with the subject matter, and not talent) is rather uncomfortable speaking it. Botterweg, already a funny name, becomes hilarious because everyone who says it sounds like they have a mouthful of something they can't wait to spit out as they pronounce it. Why not call him something like, for example, Beauchamp? So they wouldn't sound awkward. That brings me to the numerous lapses in the quality of the technical production(this had a crew, right? Did they have training? The audio guy is making rookie mistakes). Heck, at its best, this is average. The cheesy music swells up to the point where it deafens out the on-screen performers(and with the thick accents, you can barely tell what they're saying a lot of the time already; I wouldn't have been able to had I not had subtitles) here and there. I refuse to call them actors, because if they are, the are adamantly against showing it on camera in this(wouldn't it be an interesting, ironic twist if they were?). They read their lines aloud, often with astounding stiffness, and whatever feelings they express are excessive, minimal and/or misplaced. Scenes from the far superior(...never thought I'd use those words about it) movie that precedes this are re-enacted with new faces and zero of the effect. This is about power struggles, albeit those looking for a proper exploration of such will(and should) watch something else. There is plenty of female nudity and sexuality(catering to several tastes... you have been warned) in this. I recommend this solely to those who must satisfy their curiosity. 1/10

Personally I hated the original "Story of O" with a passion, and I only saw this in-name-only "sequel" by accident. Thankfully, the treatment of the subjects is a little more tasteful this time. Not that there aren't some unpleasant scenes here, but at least some of the women (especially "O") are allowed to have a more balanced, sometimes even dominant role. And when the film seems to go into inexcusable territory near the end, it pulls the rug out from under your feet. It's a strange, interesting but confused and largely pointless film. Why pointless? Because most people looking for an examination of money, power, sex and politics will choose to watch something else, and those looking for a 100% erotic film won't be very satisfied either. (**)