Historia sexual de O

Sexual Story of O, The (1984)

*** (out of 4)

Jess Franco returns to the same ground as Eugenie...The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion and delivers a pretty good remake and certainly one of the best films I've seen from his Golden Era productions. A naive young woman is sexually preyed upon by a man and woman who plan on selling her to a bizarre couple who will sexually torture the girl. The only problem is that the couple, both the man and woman, begin to have feelings for the girl. We've seen Franco tackle the Eugenie theme countless times but it's one element that he always nails on the head. There's really not too much that happens in this film as Franco takes his sweet time with every single scene by extending them to their fullest. For the most part this works but there are a few scenes that become rather boring including a three-minute toe sucking scene. However, Franco always captures sexuality perfectly and that's the case here. Franco's also known for using the same cast members over and over but this film features all fresh faces, which made the film more interesting to watch for someone who is nearing one-hundred films viewed by the director. The director doesn't pull any punches during the violent ending and manages to make it quite hard to watch even though there's no graphic violence. The film has terrific cinematography and a great score that makes this one of the director's better efforts, although newbies certainly shouldn't start here.

Never mind the title, this does not have much affinity with the famous French S&M movie, Histoire D'O. Instead, it is one of Franco's several movies inspired from and loosely based on Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir. This is quite unlike some of Franco's better known kitsch sleaze flicks. It is a deliberately slow-paced, minimalist piece of erotica. Yes, there are quite a lot of (soft-core) sex, three-some, lesbian, etc., scenes esp. in the first 2/3rds of the movie, and yet despite the presence of these skin scenes, the movie is a very uncommercial and personal effort. The victim's eventual descent into being a prey of the predatory aristocrats from cherishing a chance at free sex experience is very well executed and the final sado-orgy is terrifyingly nightmarish.