27 posts categorized "BDSM"

March 12, 2022

THE INNOCENTS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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ColeSmithey.comTruman Capote's script contributions to adapting Henry James's ghost story "The Turn Of The Screw" appear to have fleshed out the novella's potential for maximum psychosexual impact.

This 1961 gothic horror classic has informed everything from "The Exorcist" to "Crimson Peak."

Director Jack Clayton delivers penetrating chills with economy buffeted by lush set designs that define the creeping insanity of Deborah Kerr's governess character.

ColeSmithey.com

Miss Giddens has some twisted BDSM ideas escalating in her imagination. Meanwhile, she suspects the young brother and sister in her charge are up to no good.

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Child abuse is at the core of this unsettling shocker.

Nightmares may follow.

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Don't underestimate "The Innocents."

This is one effed up movie.

Not Rated. 100 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

March 05, 2022

BENEDETTA — CANNES 2021

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

 

ColeSmithey.comDaring, and bristling with bold artistic license, this social satire burns at the stake.

It's dizzying.

Virginie Efira is electric as Benedetta, a 17th century lesbian nun living in a convent in Renaissance Italy.

Fearless.

Catherine Deneuve's baton has successfully been passed down.

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 12.45.56 PM

Based on Judith C. Brown's book "Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy," "Benedetta" juggles religion, politics, and sexual identity like so many electrons in a social atom attempting to split.

Holy fucking hell.

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 12.51.59 PM

Paul Verhoeven's cinematic mastery just gets sharper.

This is a high-wire act that not many seasoned filmmakers would attempt, lest they fall flat on their blushing faces.

Screen Shot 2022-03-05 at 12.51.04 PM

Long live Paul Verhoeven.

No prisoners taken. Many gifts given.

Not Rated. 131 mins.

5 Stars

Cozy Cole

Cole Smithey on Patreon

February 09, 2018

DOUBLE LOVER

Lamant_doubleFrance’s ever-reliable and prolific auteur François Ozon (“Swimming Pool”) confirms his place as an inventive filmic storyteller with a precise sense of style, suspense, emotion, and tone. 2018 has its first great film.

Based loosely on Joyce Carol Oates’s novel “Lives of Twins” (written under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith), “Double Lover” is an alluring erotic mystery built on a puzzle of the flesh.

Surrealism and magical realism come into play. You could easily imagine David Cronenberg directing it but the film wouldn’t be near as good if he had.

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Jérémie Renier (from Ozon’s 1999 erotic thriller “Criminal Lovers”) plays twin psychoanalyst brothers Paul Meyer and Louis Delord.

Marine Vacth, the unforgettable star of Ozon’s recent “Young & Beautiful,” plays Chloe, a 25-year-old museum guard with model looks who suffers from unexplained stomach pains. Chloe becomes Paul’s patient before the sessions turn romantic to the point that they move in together with Chloe’s expressive cat Milo. Another cat character figures into the storyline as well.

Yes, here is a movie with two feline characters played by cats. Brilliant.  

Lamant-double

Rarely, if ever, has a mainstream filmmaker made such explicit use of a woman’s vagina to such sinewy narrative effect. The film opens with a close-up view inside Chloe’s vagina from her OBGYN’s vantage point before morphing into an eye.

Hitchcock had nothing on Ozon. Later in the film we watch an interior view of Chloe’s orgasming vagina (in black-and-white) during sex with Renier’s BDSM master Louis Delord. However biologically pornographic these sequences sound, they are composed in service to the film.

Double Lover

This is visceral stuff. Such a high-wire act is not easily achieved. Ozon exerts exquisite control over the diabolically twisted proceedings that draw in a deft turn from Jaqueline Bisset.

To be sure, there are some BDSM sequences between Louis and Chloe that seem sexually abusive if you discount the master/slave relationship at play. Tricky. Ozon balances the scale with a scene of Chloe pegging Paul, even if Paul says he only did it for Chloe.

Double Lover

“Double Lover” is an ideal Valentine’s Day movie for the adventurous. It gets you in the head, heart, and loins.

Rated R. 107 mins.

5 Stars

COLE SMITHEY

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity helps keep the reviews coming!

Cole Smithey on Patreon

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