Roberte, 40, resistant during the war, Calvinist and anticlerical, is deputy to the chamber and inspector of Censorship. She married Octave, an old Catholic aesthete, professor of canon law, whom she saves from impeachment for collaboration during the war. He submits his wife to a perverse custom: the laws of hospitality or prostitution of the wife by the husband.
Acting
Denise Morin-Sinclaire's glacial composure hides volcanic turmoil.
Writing
Klossowski adapted his own novel—of course it's uncomfortably personal.
Direction
Zucca films transgression like a nature documentary, which makes it worse.
Director
Pierre Zucca
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pierre Klossowski wrote the novel in 1954 and finally played Octave himself at 72, having waited decades for someone to film his fever dream correctly.
The film emerged from France's post-1968 collapse of sexual liberation into theoretical masochism—Roland Barthes loved Klossowski, which explains everything and nothing.
FR
