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The Story of O

The Story of O

List Price: $24.99
Your Price: $18.74
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Poor DVD...
Review: The star rating is mainly for the movie. I remember seeing the movie in university when it was released and being amazed that it could be made much less shown. It is controversial to say the least.

However I cannot express how disappointed I was in the DVD release. As has already been said you have a choice of tracks but the French track is without English subtitles which either shows the arrogance of the French or poor marketing - maybe both.

I wouldn't purchase the DVD until it is reissued in a standard international subtitled format.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Lots of naked women, but lacking in excitement.
Review: I've read and I've read and I've read all the reviews and all the people over the ages who have praised this flick as one of the best erotic films of all time, well PHOOEY!!! Let's just say I've seen a ton of them, and I wouldn't even rank this in the top 25. Lots of nudity and erotic situations, YES. Eroticism, NO! Boring and contrived plot, hard to watch it all the way through, as it's just doesn't hold ones interest. If you want real eroticism, check out Metzger's The Image instead, as it is one of the best.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: . . . [yawn] . . .
Review: What a bore. Impossible to find arousing (neither passion nor explicitness in the sex scenes) and very difficult to find offensive (no one's human, everyone's hilariously pretentious and so there's no way to take this seriously) this movie is a total wash-out. Admirers are missing out if they find this kind of tripe "stimulating" or compelling, and opponents should turn their sights on more dangerous work.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Time does have its effect.
Review: This film is vague as to why O chose to be so submissive and then shadow and dark are used in the scenes to cover the activities. The viewer is left empty by the scenes no close camera shots or vivid display of the sex encountered. Today's xxx videos are far more revealing with both why and what the characters are going through as they participate in this game of sexual submissiveness. Perhaps my taste has been spoiled by the time of my own birth.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Notes about the DVD
Review: The DVD offers three different language choices: the original French track, a dubbed English version, and a dubbed Spanish version. However, with the French version, no subtitles are offered. Just a note for those wishing to purchase this DVD.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The film does the novel justice!
Review: I am often disappointed with films based on novels. However, this is not the case with The Story of O. Just Jaeckin (of Emmanuelle fame) does an excellent job adapting the eroticism and romance between the protagonists. The game of domination and submission mixed with the true love that exists between the couple is captivating and erotic. Corrine Clery does an excellent job in bringing O to life. Filmed in 1975, The Story of O has become a true classic. I recommend that you watch the film after you read the book, for the literary experience is more than the movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: exciting
Review: A fine voyeur movie.. lets you tap your hidden desires, but is not for wimps and prudes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: You are all wrong!
Review: This film has nothing to do with humiliation and pornography. This film is about love, but its also a tribute to the sweet art of sexual mind games. The Story of O explores a wide range of sexual fantasies and they must be understood as fantasies and nothing else. The author does not want you to think that any of this actually happened other than in her mind, and now it can happen in yours. For those of you who want to investigate your own mind and are not afraid to ask yourself some uncomfortable questions about your own sexuality will grow with this film. For those of you who does not want any of this, you can just sit back and enjoy some true exciting erotica. I recommend this to anyone, as long as you keep an open mind and do not expect some mindless porn flick, because this is everything but that.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I wish I had not seen it
Review: I wish I had not seen it.

The movie captures the book perfectly. Very, very cleverly and smoothly done to seduce you into thinking this sickness is erotic. A woman hypnotically narrates some of the philosophical claptrap from the book. The film seduces the viewer with music and beautiful photography to "buy into" the very arousing scenes. After you have seen it there is a bad kickback due to the impersonal cruelty of the men and the self-humiliation of the women.

I wish I had not read the book; I wish I had not seen the movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Just Jaeckin: "I'm a dreamer, not a pornographer".
Review: I have the DVD English edition of this film. Bonus materials include an interview with the director, Just Jaeckin, who says very interesting things: Eroticism and pornography are not the same thing, he hates pornography, what he is concerned with is fantasy, beauty and imagination. Fantasy is necessary for the "jeux d'amour", but you should'nt go too far, in fact, fantasy must stay in the imagination. He tried to interpret what the author, a woman, meant and for example in a nonjudgmental manner, he depicts lesbianism in a way lesbian women liked.

I thought Jaekin had this outlook, I'm am an enthusiast of him. He is an "author" director, with particular interests and views, and has given a ring of little jewels like "Perils of Gwendoline", "Madame Claude" or "Lady Chatterley's lover" -not to speak of the groundbreaking "Emmanuelle". He must be recognised as a very talented and skilled director.

Unfortunately, his style withered about the time pornography was made legal, revealingly, and his last work was released in 1984. Moral outrage did not allow to discuss the aesthetic values of his films. And now the rampant "politically correct" views cast a new shadow over the possibility of recognition, but on the other hand the increased tolerance towards lifestyles runs in the opposite direction.

So for Jaeckin, erotic fantasy is not only different from pornography but even the opposite. Bigots or clumsily sensual people couldn't understand that.

It appears that the author of the book was not very appreciative of the film. That was her error. A dreamlike atmosphere pervades the whole footage, helped mightily by illumination, filters and of course the excellent score by Pierre Bachelet (that remembers, at some points Listz's "Dream of Love", a very fit inspiration, with its blending of sensuality and religiosity). There is nothing vulgar or coarse, all the actors and actresses are beautiful or conveniently rough, so are clothes, furniture, gardens, etc. A wise departure from the book comes at the close, when O claims her due from Sir Stephen, providing a happy end.

What the stoy is about is of course a metaphor. Love can be abnegation or self-denial, willingness to relinquish one's personality into the hands of the loved one, even at the price moral pain or shame. In this story this pain and shame is turned in part physical or real. But the important point is that O is prisoner, not of a group of kidnappers -that would be hateful- but of her love or her passion. The story is not about whipping but as a metaphor. Once and again she is told that she can repeal to go on playing the game, she undergoes all that of her own will -not in the details but in the general framework of submission to love and the loved person-.

In the development of the plot, some characters are "defeated" by their lovers o desired lovers. The moral pains of love are showed in their literal and metaphoric, aestheticised terms. René suffers for not having Jacqueline. Natalie burns with jealousy of Ann-Marie. The black servant is the idealized image of the shame that not corresponded love brings on. Even Sir Stephen falls in love with O and his person is branded by her -a great improvement of the screenplay to the story-. This is what the film is about, and not acts of sex or violence.

Corinne Clery is so beautiful. Even when she is submitted to those assorted punishments one sees her pride at the magnificence of her beauty, although the part was also designed so that she should be proud. She is now a talented stage actress and very beautiful still at 48.

Take this film, then, as a "dream of love", a tale where no one is forced but by their passions, desires, fantasies or their love and their desire to abide by its rules, having in mind what Jaekin says: don't try to bring them to real life, they have their place as dreams and as dreams only, perhaps with the message that some of these dreams are the spice that keeps love afoot.

A final word about "cut" and "uncut" versions. In the English language version about 8 minutes are omitted. They include some dialogues between René and O and some nudity of the latter. They are interesing to understand the web of feelings among the characters. The reason for the omission was not censure and nothing fundamental is missed in this English version


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