Os Frutos da Paixão

I bought this film on DVD despite the "stale" review and that was idiotic... That review was completely accurate and I have never seen any worse "erotic" film in my long life! Even if it partly was lovely filmed and had interesting surroundings, plus a nice cover... But my own Extreme Erotica (c) films are over 100 times more erotic (just in the soft delicious aspect) with probably less than 100 times of this films budget! The story have no logical connection with the first film or the famous book... Or any new (exciting) element of slave training, except some very strange and sad developments... Then did the main male character - Klaus Kinski - not look a bit like the second Master of "O" he try to play... And not even lovely Arielle Dombasle, did look delicious in any scene!

This film is sometimes called 'The Story of O-Pt.2',which tries to pass itself off as a sequel (of sorts)to the French erotic S&M thriller 'The Story Of O'. Although I've never seen the original version, I did, however get to see this sorry mixed bag of sexual & social politics. I guess the 'O' angle comes from the occasional S&M overtones (which were never as explicit (and unpleasant to watch) as the ones in 'Mistress'. Klaus Kinski is the only recognizable face in this French/Japanese production (but speaks his lines in English--at least in the version I saw). The unnecessary use of surrealism only manages to make this some what boring example in pseudo porn even more pretentious (what are they trying to prove with depicting a piano floating in water?). It's obvious that after the whole "porno chic" trend in cinema petered out (ouch-sorry,bad pun!)about 1975, producers had to scrape the bottom of the barrel trying to please the mavens of adult cinema,not to mention Foreign/Art Cinema,so film goers had to contend with dreck like 'The Last Woman',and others like it.

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.

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.

This movie tries to be artistic but comes across as puerile as a film school student's first attempt. Next it tries to be erotic but comes across as clumsy as a virgin's first attempt. Lastly it tries to be cruel & gripping, but aside from Kinski's performance--which is powerful but conspicuously misplaced amidst the amateur melodrama--it's about as gripping as your hand around a wet noodle (which is an appropriate metaphor considering how un-erotic this film is). It features a blowjob scene which is even lamer than Chloë Sevigny's career-burying performance in The Brown Bunny. Run away now while you have the chance. Go find yourself a Victoria's Secret lingerie catalogue instead--it's more artistic AND more erotic than this tripe.