|
Who was the real "Pauline Réage," pseudonymous author of the scandalous 1954 The Story of O, a stately masterpiece of literary pornography? Albert Camus was among those who scoffed at the idea that a woman could have written such a sexually knowing work, even if the protagonist, who’s set upon and methodically ravaged by her male lover, is a compliant female. In 1994, the real writer revealed herself at last: Dominique Aury, a shy and retiring editor at Paris’s prestigious Gallimard Press. She’d penned the book hoping to fire the interest of her charismatic, womanizing boyfriend, essayist Jean Paulhan. Pola Rapaport’s documentary is remarkable when it sticks to its 1988 on-screen interview with Aury, shortly before her death at age 90: she’s an amazing, charming, beautiful old woman with radiant, intelligent eyes. But Rapaport fleshes out her film with scenes re-creating moments from the book, and these, dull and sexless, make sado-masochism a painful bore.
BY GERALD PEARY
|
