Maîtresse

For the uninitiated, and I expect that's most of you, Maîtresse tells us the story of a thief named Olivier who robs the apartment of a mild-mannered woman (Bulle Ogier) he's encountered earlier in the day. Much to his surprise, he discovers a dungeon on her bottom story. Ogier's Ariane is secretly a dominatrix, stomping genitals, stretching guys on the rack, and otherwise abusing her clients into oblivion. This discovery leads to all manner of unexpected hijinks, as Olivier and Ariane begin a torrid affair while he tags along on her jobs, Olivier becomes obsessed with one of Ariane's clients, and a horse is slaughtered on camera; a horsemeat filet is consumed in the following scene. The lattermost among those is only one reason why this film is X-rated.

Maîtresse (translated from French as Mistress) is anything but a subtle film. The hidden bondage den and the backroom horse slaughterhouse allude to the realities of ugliness and perversion hiding behind the otherwise beautiful walls of Paris. Ogier is a pretty blonde when she's not in her dominatrix getup; after donning the wig and thick makeup she's a gargoyle of embodied meanness.

Sad then that for all its hifalutin subtext about "the hidden" facets of the city, there's not much else to Maîtresse than what readily apparent on its surface. Director Barbet Schroeder, who crafted some of cinema's most underrated gems, seems much more intent on shocking us than on offering insights about the underbelly of society -- or about the S&M lifestyle, for that matter. Olivier's hunting down of the Ariane's client feels a lot like killing time as wind our way toward a fairly benign ending. And there's nothing shocking there at all.

The Criterion disc is surprisingly thin in comparison to the company's other offerings: The primary extra is a relatively recent interview with Schroeder discussing the film. A printed essay included with the disc is also worth reading.