Since making my last post about Psychopathia Sexualis, I have had the very good fortune of chatting with Bret Wood, the film’s director and he was kind enough to send me an advance copy on DVD-R, which Peggy and I watched last night. Getting an advance copy feels extra-special, because unlike porn, which goes straight to DVD, Psychopathia Sexualis is going to have a nice little art-house run before the DVD becomes available. Watching a preview copy makes me feel like a trendy insider!

Since a few of the things I have to say about the film are provisional, let me start with this; the film is boldly experimental in its subject matter, its storytelling style and its filmcraft. The film provided an entertaining evening, followed by a full morning’s lively discussion with my wife. It’s an entertaining (strange word for something creepy and unsettling) movie, and it’s provocative art.

So then what is this Psychopathia Sexualis? Let’s start with the basic facts:

The film is drawn from the 19th century book of the same name, written by the German physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Krafft-Ebbing’s book is a collection of 238 case-studies of sexual perversion, classified variously as antipathic sexuality, homosexuality, lust murder, fetishism, unconscious sadism, lesbianism in transition to viraginty, symbolic masochism, and other “catagories” of psycho-sexual illness.

In a series of sometimes intercut vignettes, Wood presents a handful of these case studies in full period regalia. There is red velvet and red satin. There are muttonchops and tuxedos and horse-drawn carts. There’s a hell-hole asylum with patients in sack-cloth gowns. There are housemaids in black uniforms with white ruffled aprons. There are taxonometric diagrams and calipers. With nearly 100 players and at least a couple dozen locations, the scope and ambition of the film is impressive!

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