Maîtresse

One of the more... interesting... French films of the 70s! I won't pretend the performances are out of this world but Ogier is certainly well-cast as the little firecracker and Dépardieu as her lumbering oaf boyfriend. Aside from the exotic setting and activities, the continuously most interesting aspect is the role-reversal of the typical male-female relationship and what happens when desire gets in the way of routine, professionalism and status. The film could be called a little long though.

Although the main draw in picking this up was the very sexy woman in skintight latex, there's actually a decent story and unflinching character study in this. It's bit pretentious in parts, but unlike most arthouse garbage, Schroder has definite, unambigious goals and ideas about his characters and narrative -specifically what kind of romance a character with this extreme of a lifestyle would have. Take note, arthouse garbage: he's not just posing questions, but acutally trying to say something

Score based on distant memory.

I didn't expect much, but it's kind of interesting in its approach to gender roles and sexual politics, has occasional sly moments of humor, and the cinematography is quite nice. Most of the S&M scenes aren't all that necessary, and they tend to come off like cheesy fetish porn rather than adding any depth to the story or the characters.