Histoire d'O (1975)
Directed by Just Jaeckin

Film Review

It is rare to encounter an erotic movie which has anything approaching artistic merit.  Histore d'O is plausibly one such film which, despite its many other failings, does occasionally impress with its well-intended artistic pretensions.

The film was directed by Just Jaeckin who found fame in the early 1970s for his Emmanuelle films which are still widely viewed, often filling the late schedules of the less discriminating television channels. Histore d'O has acquired something of a legendary status as a  result of its ban in many countries (it was only deemed suitable for showing in the UK 25 years after it was made).

Certainly, there is a great deal of potentially shocking and sexually explicit material in the film.  From the start, naked young women are fully exposed in a variety of tantalising positions.  Many would consider the scenes where the women willingly allow themselves to be chained up and whipped quite distasteful, and is probably these scenes which prompted the heavy-handed censorship and bans.

Despite its clearly exploitative premise, the film manages to scrape together enough of a plot to engage, if not stimulate, the intellect.  There is something curiously believable, yet disturbing, in one woman's willingness to subdue herself in the name of love.

Film Synopsis

The story of O begins with a beautiful young woman agreeing to be taken to a house in the country, Château Roissy, by her devoted boyfriend René.  O is so madly in love with René that she will do anything to please him, so she willingly complies when he asks her to indulge in extreme acts of bondage and sadomasochistic sex with other men.  Stripped and blindfolded, O becomes a fantasy sex slave to all her desire her.  She allows herself to be branded with the letter O on her most intimate parts, a sign that she has given herself completely to her role as an object of male gratification.  Sir Stephen, a wealthy magnate in the world of high finance, takes a liking to O when René introduces her to him.  After offering her favours to a young model named Jacqueline, O allows herself to be taken to another country house owned by Anne-Marie.  Here, she and a number of other women are made ready for Stephen's very peculiar idea of pleasure.  All this she does for the love of a man who is as much her master as her lover...