Massimo Dallamano’s "Venus in Furs"

Another year and 4 more movie reviews for the e-zine “Predominant’. In 2012, I reviewed the very short film “Love Me Like You Hate Me” (2010), the Italian film “Masoch” (1980), Massimo Dallamano’s rendition of “Venus in Furs” (1969), and finally the Joe Marzano/Lou Campa 1967 sexploitation version of “Venus in Furs”. I have now reviewed four different films with the name “Venus in Furs”, and none of them have anything in common other than using the title from the famous Sacher-Masoch novel.

I must say that I really enjoyed the Massimo Dallamano’s rendition of “Venus in Furs” (1969) but I must warn you, it is very hard to find a copy that will play on a United States DVD player. The movie was originally released with the title “Le malizie di Venere” (The slyness of Venus). Later when the film was dubbed in English, it was re-titled “Devil in the Flesh”. And when the English rights to the film was obtained by ‘Shameless Entertainment’ and they released it on DVD, they simply cut to the chase and renamed it “Venus in Furs”. Confused yet?

Oh, and did I mention that there are two films released in 1969 with the title “Venus in Furs”, this one and the Jess Franco movie “Venus in Furs”, which had nothing to do with Sacher-Masoch’s book, other than the title. In the September/October 2010 issue of Predominant, I reviewed the 1969 Jess Franco movie “Venus in Furs”. Once I got past my initial disappointment of the misleading name and reviewed the film purely on its own merit, I realized that Jess Franco had made a superb movie. It had D&S elements, it had Franco’s trademark “surrealism” and thanks to the jazz music the movie also had an excellent soundtrack. I gave the movie 4 out of 5 stars.

Back to Massimo Dallamano’s rendition of “Venus in Furs”, not only are there four different films called “Venus in Furs” but there are three different films called “Devil in the Flesh” and the 1969 Massimo Dallamano film goes by both names.  And don’t get me started on the different region codes and cross platforms of DVD’s. For those not familiar with region codes, the United States is region 1 and Europe region 2 and other parts of the world have other region codes. You can’t watch a region 2 DVD on a region 1 DVD player and vice versa. So I ended up ordering the ‘Shameless Entertainment’ English DVD of the 1969 Massimo Dallamano’s film “Devil in the Flesh” which is also called “Venus in Furs”. I got it off of Amazon but I had to order the United Kingdom region 0 DVD because there isn’t one available in region 1. As it turned out, I couldn’t watch a region 0 DVD on my DVD player. However, I tried it on my computer DVD drive and ‘Walla!’ it played thus I was able to review the film.

I was pleasantly surprised when I watched Massimo Dallamano’s rendition of Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus in Furs.” It’s a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the novel. Dallamano moves the Sacher-Masoch story to the present day (which in this case is 1969 when the movie was made). The end of the 1960’s proves to be an ideal setting for Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s sexuality what with the female liberation movement combined with a swinging, free-love culture.

Those familiar with the novel know that the lead character Severin (much like the author) likes to be dominated, whipped and humiliated by women. Wanda is a hesitant participant at first but she ends up going beyond what Severin desired. They embark on a romance and after they have sex for the first time, Wanda shows Severin her scrap book which has pictures of her when she was a strip-tease dancer. In one of the pictures she is holding a whip. Severin asks her if she would recreate her dance routine for him. Wanda fetches the whip and she performs the erotic dance, flinging the whip around. Wanda accidentally strikes Severin across his face with the whip, she apologizes profusely but Severin smiles and he becomes even more passionate. He kisses her and then he rolls over on the bed with his naked back exposed. Severin takes the opportunity to tell Wanda about his sexual proclivities.

“Do it again. Come on whip me.”

Wanda complies and begins to whip his back. All the while we hear more of his inner thoughts. 

“My flesh burns but the pain gives me such infinite pleasure.” 

Throughout the movie we hear Severin’s innermost thoughts and between this and his many conversations with Wanda we learn about the depths of Severin’s submissive desires. He wants to be owned by a woman. He wants to worship a woman. And he wants to be utterly dominated and humiliated by a woman.  

“In love there are only masters and slaves. Those who dominate and those who are dominated.” 

Wanda is intrigued by Severin’s submission and their romance continues, as does the game of cat and mouse. The romance continues (yes the movie proceeds at a very slow pace but I didn’t have a problem with it because I felt it was important for the story development). The couple goes horseback riding. They bring the horses back to the stable and the owner of the stable invites them to watch the breeding of two of his finest horses. We see two horses snuggling next to each other, obviously flirting as if they are about to mate. The owner of the horses explains to Wanda how the male horse is only there to get the female horse aroused. He plans to breed her with a different horse, a stud horse.  

Once the mare is ready, the owner removes the colt and he brings in the stallion who mounts the mare and begins to fuck her from behind doggy style (or is it horsey style, whichever it is I felt they showed the stud horse humping the female horse way too long for my taste. It bordered on animal porn there for a minute but if you’ve ever watched two horses in action, at least you come to understand the phrase ‘he’s hung like a horse’). Wanda seems fascinated by all of this as if she now understands the role of Severin in her life. He is the colt and she is the mare. He is there merely to play with, to arouse her, but only studs will get to fuck her.  

The couple comes across a stream where a young man of twenty is fishing. Taking a page out of what they had witnessed with the horses, Wanda sits on a rock and Severin caresses her legs in order to arouse her. The young man fishing can’t help but notice the beautiful Wanda. She asks Severin one final time if this is what he really wants then she seduces the young man. She takes him off into the woods and has sex with him while Severin watches from a safe distance. After the young man leaves her, Severin snuggles next to her on the ground. The sexually fulfilled Wanda tells Severin that she feels all the more in love with him now that she knows he will give her such freedom. Severin proposes marriage to her and Wanda accepts. 

Wanda: “I want to betray you. I want to bring you to desperation.” 

Severin: “Be cruel to me, as nature is cruel, destroying that which it has created.”

 

They get married and as a wedding present Severin gives Wanda a fur coat. Wanda puts it on, basking in the pleasure of feeling the fur against her naked skin. She asks Severin why furs are so fascinating. He explains that “furs represent both power and femininity and it exalts a woman’s animal instincts and increases her desire.” 

Wanda is thrilled being married to Severin. She truly loves him and in the early days (weeks, months) of the marriage, she acts like any new bride, beaming with happiness. She can hardly keep her hands off of him and she looks at him with eyes of adoration.  

Severin buys Wanda a mansion complete with a statue of Venus and an oriental gong that she can sound to summon him. Wanda hires two maids, two lesbians who are lovers. Severin encourages Wanda to beat him but he desires more than just physical cruelty from her; he wants to be humiliated as well. He will play the role of Wanda’s servant and chauffeur, Gregor, driving Wanda to various engagements including her trysts with other men.  

Wanda is enticed by Severin’s masochism but she is not entirely happy with the arrangement. She is conflicted. It’s not that she objects to having sex with other men but she’s not entirely comfortable with Severin’s strange mix of physical passivity and emotional manipulation. Severin shows signs of being controlling and he becomes jealous whenever Wanda refuses to share with him where she goes or who she sees socially. While Severin wishes to be the submissive partner physically and sexually, he also wants to remain in psychological control of the games he and Wanda are playing.

 

 

Wanda commissions a painter to create a portrait of her; naked, holding her whip.

When the painting is finished, with Severin being there to witness the unveiling, Wanda removes her robe and jumps into the arms of the painter. Wanda takes him by the hand and leads him to her bedroom. She assures the nervous painter that her husband is perfectly fine with this arrangement. Severin watches through the bedroom screen as the painter makes love to his wife.

“Seeing her with another man makes me suffer. I feel a terrible pain pounding in my temple. And yet she looks so beautiful… I have never suffered so much.”

 

When he is done making love to her, the painter leaves as Severin enters the bedroom. He removes his shirt and kneels to caress Wanda’s body. But Wanda snaps at him, “Don’t you touch me.” 

 

This is the first time Wanda has cheated on Severin as his wife and she begins to cry. He tries to comfort her but she slaps him hard across his face and yells at him to “get out”. Severin asks “what’s wrong?” Wanda grabs her whip and in a fury, she brutally whips Severin, cutting his face several times and leaving marks all over his body.

“I hate you! Get out! You disgust me! Get out! Get out!”

 

The next day, all seems forgiven and Severin is Wanda’s chauffer again. The dominant/submissive elements of the marriage are becoming far more complicated than they appear to be on the surface, and there is in fact a power struggle being conducted by Wanda and Severin. Wanda begins to treat Severin more cruelly.  
 

When she picks up a macho biker as her latest sex toy, he too is drawn into her D&S games. She makes Severin exit the vehicle so she can have sex with the biker in the back seat of the car. As if that isn’t emasculating enough, she orders Severin to walk far enough away from the car so he can’t watch her having sex with the biker (in doing this she is now taking away that which Severin enjoys the most about their cuckolding arrangement). When Severin hesitates to leave, the biker runs him off, thinking Severin is but Wanda’s chauffer, not knowing he is in reality her husband. The biker becomes Wanda’s stallion and she encourages her new stud to treat her emasculated husband as cruelly as she does.  
 

Later on we see Wanda and the biker back at her house, having sex in her bedroom. Severin takes up his usual position behind the screen so he can watch. The biker notices Severin and he jumps off the bed and grabs him. He orders Severin to leave but Severin tells him that he has every right to be there. When the biker asks Wanda what Severin is talking about, she nonchalantly lights a cigarette and says,

 

“May I present my husband. That’s how he gets his pleasure. He’s a degenerate.”

 

Severin is no longer happy with this arrangement and he begins to question his submissive desires.  
 

“Love does not unite a man and a woman, it separates them, turning them into implacable enemies. There is no truce in the war between the sexes. Only winners and losers. Only masters and slaves.” 
 

The next day Wanda is having lunch with her lover. When she asks her husband where he’s been, he confesses to her about his unhappy status. She tells him that he cannot move her with his emotions and she verbally dresses him down in front of her lover, calling him an idiot and telling him he is powerless and not a real man. Severin lashes out by calling her a Bitch. Wanda slaps him across the face, which would normally send Severin off into subspace but not this time. Instead, he goes to his room and packs. 
 

He has decided to leave Wanda and begin a new life. He comes to a tourist stop that is full of prostitutes. One of the prostitutes reminds him of Wanda (the prostitute is also played by Laura Antonelli). He picks her up and they go to a hotel room. As his mind recalls all the times and all the ways Wanda mistreated him, he takes his anger out on the prostitute, slapping her around. The hotel manager and a security guard hear the abuse taking place and they bust into the room and subdue Severin. The guard is about to arrest him when the prostitute begs them not to do it. She claims it was all her fault and to please leave Severin alone. The men relent and leave the room. 

It turns out that the prostitute is accustomed to being treated cruelly by men and she wants to stay with Severin. She calls him Master and promises she will do whatever he wants her to do.

 

 

 

Severin seems excited about this and he whispers in her ear what he wants her to do. She looks intrigued and she eagerly agrees to his request. And what does Severin want her to do? He wants her to whip him. The movie ends with the prostitute whipping Severin. She is laughing happily as she flogs him and Severin has a peaceful look on his face as he gladly endures her whip.  
 

Régis Vallée is quite good in the role of Severin, avoiding the temptation to play him as a milquetoast submissive man. And the stunningly beautiful Laura Antonelli is equally good as Wanda, a dominant woman by nature but one who is not sure she really wants to fulfill that role.  
 

This rendition of “Venus in Furs” has an abundance of visual style, with plenty of classic late 60s/early 70s sets. Both Régis Vallée and Laura Antonelli are beautiful people that are just as easy to look at clothed or unclothed (and Laura Antonelli is unclothed for a considerable proportion of the movie’s running time).  

The movie is your typical foreign film from this era in that it can be drawn out at times with gaps in dialogue and a less than flattering musical score. And don’t expect the whipping scenes to be on par with what you see today on Femdom websites. They never show Wanda actually whipping Severin. We see her using the whip and then we see Severin with cuts on his face and body but we never actually see whip making contact with flesh. And the sex scenes are more R rated than X rated but if you like seeing a beautiful woman topless and men kissing and touching her naked skin, you’ll no doubt find the film to be plenty enough erotic. 

 

 

I found the dialogue between Severin and Wanda to be rather profound as it related to the power dynamics and the internal struggles of those power dynamics within their relationship. Overall this movie is a wonderful portrayal of the Sacher-Masoch novel and bringing it into more modern times really worked for me.

 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

I’ve yet to sign on for another year for “Predominant” and as of today I am leaning toward 2012 being my last. But I have yet to make a final decision because I do enjoy searching for these kinds of movies, watching them and writing my opinion of them.