Seduction: The Cruel Woman

You can always count on West German cinema to be capital A artsy and explore topics that even today, American cinema wouldn’t touch or wouldn’t depict as frankly and intensely as this country that doesn’t exist anymore did 30 years ago. Seduction: The Cruel Woman is one of the best BDSM films I’ve ever seen.

Wanda is a dominatrix. She has a small business too, largely employed by her submissives. But Wanda’s main thing is her “gallery,” a house dedicated to kinky sex shows. Much of this film is artistic performances of kink at the gallery. Conflict arises from Wanda’s various submissives. She’s got some female partners, but they’re not the issue. One of her male subs breaks the cardinal rule of Wanda’s kink empire by falling in love with her.

Director Monika Treut apparently did her thesis on BDSM. She also works frequently in documentary. For this narrative film, Treut brings both her knowledge and certain documentary-style ways of depicting a topic. There are monologues and discussions that break down the “why” of kink and explore it through poetic metaphor as well as blatant just saying what you mean. This tactic works well as Treut mixes it with numerous artistic flourishes for this narrative feature film.

For Wanda and the film itself, kink is art. And Seduction: The Cruel Woman is not lazy with its art. This film has perpetually beautifully mise-en-scène. The framing of shots, especially shots of kink is absolutely stunning. Stills of this film could be artistic photography. Blocking, colour use, camera angle and at least ten other things all go into Treut’s depiction of kink. Sex itself has little place in Wanda’s type of domination. And as a film, Seduction also deprioritizes that element. This films is not meant to arouse, it’s meant to be visually striking art that just happens to be about a sex thing.

The story in Seduction is a little vague and doesn’t get focus until the film’s end. It is the weakest element of the film. What I do appreciate is that while there’s not a lot of story, the characters get enough time to discuss their philosophies as related to kink. As a film, this goes far past a bit of bondage and a blindfold. There’s a whole ethos and lifestyle to what’s going on. And while the individuals who live this lifestyle might be a bit flat as characters, their dialogue about the lifestyle itself is interesting, and adds a necessary element to this story about BDSM.

Most films about BDSM are actually pretty tame yet present their kink to you like it’s either shocking or inherently arousing. Seduction: The Cruel Woman is a welcome contrast. The kink is full-time, very elaborate and intense. It’s often not sexy to the average person, unless you like watching a businessman lick a dirty floor. But despite its name, Seduction isn’t meant to be sexy. Hell, the absence of sex comes up in the film more than once. Instead, the film is an artistic exploration of people at the fringes of a subculture. It crafts that subculture as something capable of great beauty under the direction of Monika Treut and her colour-saturated, Dutch angle-loving camera.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

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