The subject is something that even modern filmmakers and writers (looking at you, Fifty Shades of Grey) fail to comprehend and usually reduce to simple-minded moralizing. The more alarming fact, one this film tackles headlong, is sexual masochists are almost always the ones in control of the interaction, the dominatrix's power an illusion. A power dynamic ripe for exploration. Even when the dominatrix head butts the dude she isn't really in control of the situation, in fact quite the opposite.
Coincidentally, it's sad and a little absurd that people are downvoting this for the horse scene for honestly depicting a slaughterhouse. But, as with the S&M thing, people prefer to only see a vision of reality that comforts them. Best not to dwell upon how that Big Mac gets from the farm to your face, I suppose.
The happy ending is a truly subversive twist in an industry where the word "subversive" is recklessly used to point of meaninglessness. This material could have easily been reduced to mere exploitative junk like a later-period Pasolini movie, a mind-numbing satire like Bunuel, or the kind of trite, grandstanding lectures you get from Godard. But this film's director, the greatly underrated Barbet Schroeder, has a more deft touch.
Coincidentally, it's sad and a little absurd that people are downvoting this for the horse scene for honestly depicting a slaughterhouse. But, as with the S&M thing, people prefer to only see a vision of reality that comforts them. Best not to dwell upon how that Big Mac gets from the farm to your face, I suppose.
The happy ending is a truly subversive twist in an industry where the word "subversive" is recklessly used to point of meaninglessness. This material could have easily been reduced to mere exploitative junk like a later-period Pasolini movie, a mind-numbing satire like Bunuel, or the kind of trite, grandstanding lectures you get from Godard. But this film's director, the greatly underrated Barbet Schroeder, has a more deft touch.