Still, the whole thing’s on YouTube, though the film was banned in the UK until 2000.
If your inclinations line up with the film’s ensemble, there might be some allure (though the presence of Kier is, frankly a little off-putting), but the characters are so blank, the material so repetitive, and the direction so cheap and shoddy (and often unintentionally funny, like the LOL-tastic owl mask that O wears at the end) that it’s typically hard for the non-inclined to get anything out of it.
It’s a clear forerunner to ‘Fifty Shades,’ though the exploits are a fair bit more hardcore and shares many of the same dramatic weaknesses. It’s largely plot-free, involving a young woman called O (Corinne Cleary) whose lover Rene (Udo Kier) brings her to a chateau to be initiated in the world of sadomasochism by his step-brother Sir Stephen (Anthony Steel). “Wages Of Fear” and “Les Diaboliques” helmer Henri-Georges Clouzot unsuccessfully attempted to mount an adaptation at one point, but it eventually reached the screen thanks to “Emmanuelle” director Just Jaeckin in 1975. Published in 1954, Anne Declos’ Marquis de Sade-influenced novel “Story Of O” (published under the nom de plume Pauline Reage) was one of the most important literary works in introducing BDSM to a wider audience -as a literary phenomenon, it was inevitable that the book would make it to the screen at some point. Not to mention Cartensen’s fearless turn and Hermann show-stealing, virtually silent performance. A unashamedly melodramatic nod to Fassbinder’s beloved Douglas Sirk and "All About Eve" (that film’s director Joseph Mankiewicz gets a name check at one point), the film doesn’t have that much in the way of whips and chains but is more effective than most at depicting the raw, brutal power dynamics of a sub/dom relationship, thanks in part to claustrophobic staging from the director and future Scorsese DP Michael Ballhaus. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and based on his own heavily autobiographical play (a veiled version of the triangular relationship between the director, his lover Günther Kaufmann and his assistant/composer Peer Raben), ‘Bitter Tears’ follows the titular fashion designer (Margit Cartensen) as she falls deeply in love with the beautiful Karin (Hanna Schygulla) while tormenting her devoted assistant Marlene (Irm Hermann). Some of the films listed here are obvious precursors to “Fifty Shades Of Grey,” but “The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant” obviously shares DNA with the recently released “The Duke Of Burgundy” (which is discussed down the list).
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