Venus in Furs (1969)
Shameless DVD (region 2)
d. Massimo Dallamano; pr. Luggi Waldleitner; scr. Inge Hilger, Fabio Massimo; novel. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch; ph. Sergio D'Offizi; m. Gianfranco Reverberi; ed. Hans Zeiler; cast. Laura Antonelli, Regis Vallee, Loren Ewing, Renate Kasche (82 mins)
1969 saw the release of two films titled Venus in Furs.
Spanish director Jess Franco used the title for an orgiastic, jazz-rhythm psychedelic experience of an erotic film which was popular but had nothing to do with the infamous novel from which the film took its title. The other version, directed by Italian Massimo Dallamano, was an adaptation of the source novel and when finally released in Italy in 1972 proved controversial enough to be immediately banned, its sex scenes cut out and replaced by plot filler. Franco’s film became a cult classic whilst Dallamano’s languished. It is Dallamano’s version that is now released via Shameless DVD: however, the British Board of Film Censors apparently still find objection to the sexual content and this version is cut by up to a minute.
Venus in Furs is the most famous book by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the only one of his works ever translated into English.
It detailed a sexual practice which shortly after the book’s publication led to the term “masochism”, from the author’s surname. Psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the term in his treatise on sexual perversion, Psychopathia Sexualis, in which he refers to Sacher-Masoch as “the poet of masochism”. Whilst sadistic sexual pleasure is through the infliction of pain and humiliation, masochistic sexual pleasure is through its reception.
Severin (Regis Vallee) takes a rural vacation. He soon sees a woman in furs (Euro sex starlet Laura Antonelli) and fixates on her. He follows her around, watching her shower, touch herself and have sex with men. The sight triggers memories of a childhood impression and he seeks a relationship with her. As they court, he tells her that he wants a master-slave relationship with her, with him as her slave: to do her bidding and receive her punishment as she sees fit. Initially she seems disinterested although grows to enjoy inflicting pain and humiliation upon him. When he becomes her chauffeur and she takes another lover, Vallee watches them, though by now Antonelli has begun to resent his sexual deviance and even despise him for it.
Venus in Furs is an early example of the European sexploitation movie that would proliferate in the 1970s, ranging from such as The Frightened Woman to Emmanuelle.
Its emphasis on nudity, character psychology and sexual perversion played out in a succession of encounters propels it in the manner of an odyssey through sexual deviance. The dialogue contains the type of intellectual rationalization of sexual behaviour that litters C19th erotic “libertine” literature. The libertine was a male figure, a master of immense sexual appetite, who would usually instruct submissive women through sexual humiliations. Emmanuelle director Just Jaeckin perfected screen libertine erotica with his hit film adaptation of The Story of O. What remains interesting about Venus in Furs within this legacy is its inversion of the traditional libertine figure so that the libertine here wishes to receive the submissive treatment usually reserved for women.
The nudity is tantalizing and the sex scenes evocative but it is finally the underlying psychology that distinguishes Venus in Furs. Dallamano is as concerned with titillating nudity (as anyone would be with the luscious Antonelli in the cast) as he is with creating a perverse sense of empathy with the Severin character. Whilst most male sexual deviates in film have tended towards sadism, eventually birthing Pier Pasolini’s Salo: 120 Days of Sodom, the tendency towards masochism makes Venus in Furs almost unique amongst Euro-sex films and for that reason is essential viewing for fans of European erotica. Here director Dallamano proves himself a capable stylist, bringing an energy and conviction to the staging of offbeat gender role-play sexual fantasies, and alert to the emotional and behavioural toll that such have on both the individual concerned and their sexual partner. Dallamano’s games with gender expectation here are genuinely both intriguing and disturbing.
Antonelli’s ample figure is gorgeous to watch and although the portrait of masculine heterosexuality here may be a touch alienating for those not inclined to empathize with it, Dallamano’s Venus in Furs is one of the most neglected of Euro-sleaze treasures and the widescreen print supplied by Shameless DVD perfectly preserves the erotic compositional sense to what is a masochistic sex fantasy scenario.
Those who know director Dallamano from such crime thrillers and near giallos as What Have They Done to Your Daughters? may be additionally intrigued by this release, which neatly complements the variety of 1970s Italian exploitation finding its way onto DVD, a body of work for which Shameless DVD are emerging as a distributor for whom to keep an eye out.
