Psychopathia Sexualis (2006)

Director:

Bret Wood

Writer:

Bret Wood (writer)

Release Date:

8 June 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Tales of Deviance and Forbidden Desire from the Case Studies of Krafft-Ebing

Plot:

Multi-narrative adaptation of Richard v. Krafft-Ebing's notorious medico-forensic study of sexual perversity. |

Plot Keywords:

Dominatrix

Cast

Kristi Casey	...	Blood Woman
David Weber	...	Blood Man
Zoë Cooper	...	Shepherdess
Patrick Parker	...	Emil Fourquet (as Patrick L. Parker)
David Sanders	...	Forquet's Assistant
Roger Foster	...	Farm Laborer
Jason Hodges	...	Guard
Steven Westdahl	...	Joseph Vacher
Victor Lambert	...	Guard
Adam K. Thompson	...	Journalist
J. Marcelo Banderas	...	Corpse / Loiterer (as Marcelo Banderas)
Ted Manson	...	Professor Krafft-Ebing
Daniel May	...	J.H.
Jane Bass	...	Mother
Anne Towns	...	Maid 1

MPAA:

Rated R for strong sexual content including aberrant and deviant behavior, graphic nudity, some violence and disturbing images.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Company:

Illustrated Films LLC

Trivia:

When submitted to the MPAA, the film was unofficially given an NC-17 rating. In order to obtain an R rating, the filmmakers had to remove a shot of urination in someone's mouth. Rather than re-cut the scene, the filmmakers removed the entire (two-minute) sequence, which also includes male frontal nudity.

Movie Connections:

Version of Sesso perverso, mondo violento (1980)

something of a failure

I have three comments to make about this film, which I discovered hanging out forlornly in a lower shelf at Blockbuster. First off, it is interesting to see the approaches film makers take in trying to film essentially unfilmable works. Some have, as Kubrick did with "Lolita", gotten the original author to write a screenplay that is something like the original work. Of course that can't happen here; Kraft-Ebing is long dead. Some have used the premises of the original work as a launch point to go in a completely new, unrelated direction (the recent adaptation of "Tristram Shandy" comes to mind here). You can dumb it down - the film of "Slaughterhouse Five" is to my mind an example of that. Or you can simply take the format of the original and try to render it in cinematic vignettes. That would be the approach of Woody Allen's "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex", and, arguably, this film. Upon consideration, it is probably the only thing one can do with a scholarly work like "Psychopathia Sexualis". The potential loss is that whatever cumulative point the original work had is obscured or destroyed. And so it is here.

Point two is the cinematic style. Some would call it an "homage" to Murnau, Pabst, Carl Dreyer, etc., but I think it more crude than that. Its far too heavy handed and self-conscious to be effective for long. It is eventually just annoying.

Point three is perhaps a less intellectual observation. How did the people responsible for this manage to make a film about wild sexual deviations and perversion that is so incredibly boring? I found the film impossible to pay attention to, and anyone who is not automatically drawn to depictions of sexual deviance will find it so as well. I don't want to be completely uncharitable and say the film is pointless, but I have to say that whatever point the film makers had is rather obscured by the nature of the source material, the overt copying of filmic styles, and the stubborn refusal to engage the audience on an emotional level (possibly for fear of being accused of titillation).

The film is a dubious exercise from the start and doesn't really work for me, I'm sorry to say.