The meeting point between exploitation demands and arthouse pretensions is ideal cinematic terrain to my mind. Base pleasures that Venus In Furs (1969) – directed by Jess Franco – offers is nudity and sex (well, what accounts for it late 1960s international cinema) with Maria Rohm nude in a fur coat with stockings and a few different wigs. Across the flesh and writhing on display is also the influence of arthouse cinema, flourishes borrowed from films like Last Year at Marienbad, Persona and Blow Up, and of course, surreal Hollywood thrillers like Vertigo as many have pointed out.
A jazz trumpeter named Jimmy Logan (James Darren – best known to me as William Shatner’s offsider in TJ Hooker) narrates this dream-like experience, finding a woman’s dead body washed up on the beach one morning, and recognising it as Wanda Reed (Rohm), a lady he met at a swanky party he was playing music at. Witnessing her degradation and assault by three attendees (including Margaret Lee, Dennis Price and Klaus Kinski), Jimmy sees Wanda alive and well, or is it her? What follows is a variation on the rape/revenge storyline as the murderers find themselves seduced by a mysterious woman in furs, as Jimmy Logan struggles to know what is real and what is imagined, all of which is helped by the distancing effect of the story being mainly told through his introspective, dime-store pulp narration.
Venus In Furs is about vibes. The use of mirrors to reflect bodies in a room. Or in the intercutting and zooming in of paintings during sex scenes. Slow motion and psychedelic tinting of the celluloid image. Jazz music being played by Manfred Mann in swanky rooms. Stock footage of the Rio carnival overlaid intermingled with characters visiting scenic spots in Barcelona and Istanbul. Maria Rohm is a compelling avatar of ghostly retribution and cool sexuality. Even though the cut widely available is an American version (and re-edit) of Franco’s original movie (titled Paroxismus), there’s enough weirdness and sadomasochistic energy throughout this very Sixties experience, which veers between artsiness and seediness. I had a ball!
Available to stream on Brollie. Recommended.
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