Les fruits de la passion

First I need to say that this film is not a porn movie nor it is trash. If you expect an erotic film, you will be disappointed, although there are some sexual scenes. The text of the DVD sleeve (I own the Anchor Bay version) awakens wrong expectations for this movie and contains false information about the story. Instead, I found its photography a very beautiful artwork. It is made with a high sense for colors, great images, perfectionism in detail and a beauty in its pictures that is found rarely in newer movies in the western world. Maybe this is one reason why it may bore some people with a more speedy expectation for films then it is shown in this slowly developing story. The exotic environment of the story is a brothel in Hongkong, 1920, where "O", a French girl, surrenders totally to Mr. Steven (Klaus Kinski), desperately hoping to reach his heart.

If this was an American movie, it would have surely a happy end - but it is an eastern and sad story of an unfulfilled love. I find it worth to watch it more than once to enjoy its artwork and to understand its deep symbolism. It is not an easy film, especially for those used to watch Hollywood-productions only. Be prepared to watch it consciously and with full attention, otherwise you might not like it. I highly recommend it for people with a sense for somehow old-fashioned esthetics, art, eastern culture, beautiful images, and, of course, it is a must-see for all the fans of the greatest German actor, Klaus Kinski.

This will not be a positive experience for everyone. Several things would be offputting. Most would be offended that it is based on a book with trivial sensibilities. There is explicit sex. The nature of the thing slips often into visual symbolism. Many languages are spoken. Some of the text is sophomoric. Obsession, perversion, sexual quest, caste and political struggle are mixed up with no apparent coherence. Advertised as erotic, it is anything but.

And yet. It is deliciously placed between Breilliat and Resnais and is better than most from them. If you watch a lot of movies and deeply, like I do, the better ones form a sort of tapestry that reinforce each other. Two of my "must-see" films are "Pillow Book" and "Fitzcarraldo," which this lean up against. Not of the same caliber of course, but there's a resonance.

There are some marvelous experiences here. For instance, the young girl is newly established in her sparse cell at the brothel. She has put on the bottom of her dress and stands at the night window, pining for Kinski (who is with another lover). Across the screen on the wall is her shadow, a lovely, lonely pose, breasts alert. She moves away from the window in impatience. The shadow remains unmoved.

Another: flashback to O as a girl, imprisoned by her father in a chalk square while he walks away and a clown rolls a flaming hoop about. The receding man turns into Kinski. Flash forward to the prostituted O, sewing the torn photo of Kinski, just before she is placed in a flying swan device to be sodomized by an aging client.

Another prostitute in the brothel is an aging actress. To get her to "perform," they set up a camera to pretend they are shooting, "Sunset Blvd." wise. We see this a couple times, then it shifts from the pretend movie to a (presumed) past, real movie. This raises an issue that leads to her suicide in the fashion of Ophelia. Her body in the pond is lifted by a rising piano.

The story (the parts that don't matter to me) is influenced by Kinski, partly autobiographical and right before we see the same character (in a similar white suit) in "Fitzcarraldo." The madness matters.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

I have often expressed the desire to see Kinski in a graphic sex film, but of course I meant NASTASSIA Kinski, not Klaus. But I got the "monkey's paw" version of my wish here with this sequel to "The Story of O" based on a novel by the same pseudononymous author ("Pauline Reage"). In this film "O" (Isabella Illiers, replacing Corinne Clery) has been taken to Asia and put in a brothel by her much older lover/master Sir Stephen (Klaus Kinski). He comes back from time to time to have sex with her, or to spy on her with "clients", or to tie her up and force her to watch as he has wild sex with his other young mistress (Arielle Dombasle). A local teenager spies her through the barred windows of the brothel, and when Stephen sees her making love to the boy (perhaps the most questionable scene as the actor really does look to only be about 14--but I'm sure he got over it), he realizes that he is beginning to lose control over her.

This film has less S and M and bondage than the original "Story of O", but the sex scenes are much more graphic. There is one obviously unsimulated oral sex scene and another "missionary" scene with Kinski and Illiers that looks pretty unsimulated as well. If you consider this a hardcore porn film, it is a veritable masterpiece. The cinematography is excellent and the musical score is good. There are a lot of poetic images--for instance, a long shot of a dead bird floating in the bay outside the convent, and later a surreal Jean Rollinesque image of a drowned woman floating on a grand piano (?!) in this same bay. Most hardcore porn films wouldn't bother with such arty digressions. As an art film though, which this is also obviously trying to be, it is less successful, mostly because all the characters are pretty thinly drawn.

Illiers (who was never really to be seen again in films) is OK. She's not a great actress (she's not even a mole on Corrine Clery's beauteous backside), but she can at least look convincingly forlorn (something I can't imagine any American porn actress doing). Arielle Dombasle is perhaps most recognizable from Eric Rohmer's "Pauline at the Beach" where she played the title character's incredibly sexy but slow-witted and slutty older cousin. In "Pauline" her young character falls madly in love with a balding, middle-aged cad for some reason. Here she has apparently moved on to the elderly. It is actually pretty damn hard to buy either of these tres gorgeous jeun French filles (pardon my Franglish) being in love with Klaus Kinski who looks pretty much like grim death here. Kinski is pretty good I guess, but he seems rather bored and contemptuous of his role--but then he was ALWAYS like that (except perhaps in his films with Herzog where he, sometimes literally, had a gun to his head). I'd still rather see his daughter have graphic sex with Illiers and Dombasle of course, but he--and this whole film--aren't too bad overall I guess.

I really like Kinski he is a great actor. I've seen this movie because I've heard that there are autobiographic aspects in this movie.

The film is full of symbols like a piano sinking in a river or strange shadow-pictures at the walls. Then the narrator always says abstract sentences like: "A kid sells fortune, but her box is empty now." This is really disturbing and wasn't really necessary, because everyone understands what this movie is all about. The movie shows how Kinski's character treated woman, and how he kept them under control. If there are really some aspects of Kinski's life in this story - then he really was an swine. So there is no need to watch this movie, unless if you want to see Kinski naked or if you like sick trash movies to laugh about.

The two main characters are taken from The Story of O. As is the initial premise in the novel, O submitting (to a brothel in this film) to Sir Stephen to prove her devotion. This movie takes place in China in the 1920's. A major side story is the uprising by some Chinese citizens. A smaller side story is a young man who has become infatuated with O. Even more side stories on other smaller characters.

The acting is good but none stand out. There are some very brief scenes of unstimulated sex but I would not call it hardcore. The camera work is excellent. I love how often the camera pans across a scene. A picture says a thousand words but this is ten thousand.

I like movies that have several pieces to make the story as this one does. Several interesting characters from each piece. Some might be put off by the sex and S&M scenes but they just were vehicles to help tell the story.

The acting could have been better tho wasn't bad. While O was the central character, it felt like something was missing. Still, I enjoyed watching.