What do the following actresses all have in common; Maggie Gyllenhaal (Stranger Than Fiction), Isabelle Huppert (I Heart Huckabees), Catherine Deneuve (Dancer in the Dark) and Miho Nikaido…? They have all embraced a sexual darkness in themselves that has allowed them to overcome their prudish and frigid exteriors. The way they have done this is by experimenting in the realm of BDSM, whether it be Gyllenhaal’s latent awakening to her calling as a submissive in Secretary, Huppert’s deeply disturbed psyche that drives her to dominating and sadistic behaviour in The Piano Teacher, Deneuve’s state of marital ennui that suffocates fantasies of being tied up and whipped in the forest in Belle de Jour or Miho’s absence of identity that turns her into a tool to be used in the underbelly and dark recesses of Tokyo’s nightlife in Tokyo Decadence.
All these women suffer from a repression that has either been programmed into them by the society they belong to, inherited as a mental illness or has been self-imposed due to their own personal habits and hang-ups. It would seem that the proverb still waters run deep is most appropriate as these are women who live in extremes. They don’t as much have a curiosity for bondage, submission, sadism and all that belongs to the BDSM subculture, as they do an inherent lust, a yearning or voracity to race into its black tunnel until the white light at the end makes it something pure inside of them. It should not be assumed that nihilism is their motivation for each female is respectful of their environment and their roles as adults. Maggie incorporates her fetish into her daily life and even her profession, rebutting James Spader’s “We can’t do this everyday” with “Why not?” Isabelle is a talented and revered piano teacher of whom it could be said that until she lets her true submissive desires known to one of her student admirers, channels the other, more sadistic side of her temperament, into her strict and unforgiving manner when her students make mistakes playing. Catherine belongs to an upper class society and saves face for her husband’s sake by keeping her prostitution a secret and Nikaido has a day job volunteering with deaf children.
Other noteworthy mentions of BDSM in film would be two films that deal with the subject but with less to no humanity. The examples I have mentioned above, despite using graphic imagery; playing with sensitive taboos; and making a criticised connection between mental illness and wanting to be spank or be spanked, were all done with growth in mind. There was an underlying goal for these women to use sadomasochism to become content in their own skin and find happiness. In Pulp Fiction and Salo this is not the case, as these films only serve to enforce the negative stereotype that the kind of people who enjoy “that sort of thing” are cruel and heartless. There is no love when Zed ties up and gags Marsellus Wallace, raping him while “The Gimp”, a babbling imbecile screams like a loony. Nor is there any redemption in the force-feeding of feces to innocent adolescents who are at the mercy of a group of decadent intellectuals who believe “Without bloodshed, there’s no pardon.”
In short, if you want to be entertained but provoked see Secretary and Belle de Jour. If you want a more disturbing and melancholy experience then see The Piano Teacher and Tokyo Decadence. If it’s sleazy parody you’re after then Pulp Fiction is the one, but if you should find yourself in a particularly depraved mood then approach Salo, but with maximum caution.
Nathan
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