La sottomissione di Mary

(Leaving aside the awful, wooden acting, the incoherent plot and the plodding script.)

The production company attempted to hype this on BDSM web boards and forums as being a "lifestyle movie", whilst on their website claiming that it was an Important Film dealing with the modern day scandal of human trafficking. Trying to ride those two horses is evident by their mixing up of the trappings of consensual BDSM with modern people smuggling and human organ trading. As such, they smear BDSM while providing a totally unconvincing picture of modern day slavery.

If the audience were to be persuaded of anything by this effort, it's the distortion that consensual BDSM is about exploiting vulnerable people, and that human traffickers are cartoon villains who talk like refugees from a cheap porno movies.

This a very unusual perspective on a serious human issue, trafficking. I think it takes the subject matter seriously enough as it doesn't paint a rosey picture. However, the main topic of the movie is the girl's (not victim) willingness to comply. The movie has atmosphere, an intriguing story and is well filmed. The acting is surprisingly good and it is well directed. I can't see why it has been rated so low!

This movie is genius out the other direction. It's so dumb and poorly made that it becomes entertaining. Its portrayal of BDSM is so clearly incorrect and offensive that even someone who is not apart of the community, could tell this is a gross misrepresentation of that community. Boy is it amusing though! The self seriousness and self importance is laughable! My suggestion is to get either drunk or high and watch this - you'll have a good time!

A movie about power exchange featuring bondage. Doomed from even before the word go, because nobody here knows what they are doing. The theme has crossed wires, the script is utterly lame, the acting is dull, the camera-work is bleak, the excitement is often off, and the performances are way under par. This thing is too tame to be an adult movie, yet its theme is highly controversial, guaranteed to upset everybody. So, to make it mainstream acceptable, director D. Stevens, who should never work in this town again as he just waists everybody's time, pulls back on the camera-work and makes it as visually appealing as close-circuit television, with images that are often static, frequently distant, or otherwise bland. The human body is, to put it mildly, very interesting. Mr. D. manages brilliantly to make nudity seem boring, for the most part anyway, although I absolutely love that bit "The Girls of The Pet" included as a filler at the end of the plodding main feature, where we get to see under-employed co-star Jane Steele do the Jane Seymour thing with her long, long red hair.

The theme also gets entangled with bad guy organ harvesters, as if the bondage BDSM set is the same, or at least, related thing. Does that community a disservice.

And those tiresome references likening her to a dog! Playing fetch, yapping, sniffing master's hand. Hell, nobody would regress to animal status overnight. The petting of the hair is real cute though.

It also subscribes to the Neanderthal notion that masters want their slaves/pets marked, their charges to crawl around on their knees, and to lick their shoes. I guess this might be prevalent on the real-life scene, appealing to those who are too dumb to think up better fantasies for themselves, but the lead character seemed to be a more refined intelligent type... Anyway, you would have to be very stupid, very dense indeed, to mess up your 'property' so oafishly. I mean, you pay a fortune, and immediately mess up your investment? Hey, would these masters buy a sports car and then drive it through the swamps?

Andrea Edmondson gamely tries. Hell, some story she could one day tell to her grandchildren (not).

Even with copious nudity, what goes on on- screen, is just about as dull as ditch-water and as tepid as last week's stale tea. An anemic production that's one big yawn.

The DVD's stylish box cover art showing the naked bound slave kneeling before her master, is the best thing about it. It is not the image shown here on IMDb, of course not. It is not even really part of the movie, it is obviously a borrowed image Breaking Glass obtained to make the packaging ultra-appealing, and lure in suckers like me. :(

To sum it up, the Master/slave genre might be coming into its own with FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, no doubt what motivated Breaking Glass to acquire the rights to this little bit of flotsam, quick to get onto the bandwagon. This one is unsalvagable junk, though, an example of what not to do. Tame, so as not to catch too much flak, bland, because of misdirection and utter incompetence - and worst of all, dumb to the core, as thick as three short planks.

If you're into Master/slave alternate lifestyle and BDSM, this movie is for you. The two leads are perfectly cast - Andrea Edmondson who is very believable as the submissive human pet and Pierre Dulat who brings European sophistication to his role of master. When those two are on screen, the movie works. The rest of the cast is not up to their standards and the early part of the story is lacking and the ending is even worse, but the middle hour of this movie is really excellent with the interaction between the two leads. Andrea is nude for most of the film, but it's so natural that you won't even notice after the first few minutes. If you're not into alternate lifestyles, this movie will leave you cold because clearly this movie was aimed at a very narrowly focused audience and it hits a bulls-eye with them.