Margaret Qualley as Rebecca and Christopher Abbott as Hal.
Sanctuary is a 2022 drama film directed by Zachary Wigon and written by Micah Bloomberg. IMDBAmazon
This essay contains spoilers.
Sanctuary resembles David Ives’ stage play Venus in Fur (film adaptation by Roman Polanski): it focuses on two people in a single location, and deals with the constantly shifting power relations between a man and a woman.
Hal (Christopher Abbot) is the heir of a hotel empire. He’s about to be appointed the CEO after the death of his father. In the luxury suite of one of the hotels, he meets with Rebecca, who at first appears to be a lawyer who will interview him for the position. This escalates into a humiliation scene of Rebecca watching while Hal cleans the toilet in his underwear.
The Leather Boys is a 1964 British “kitchen sink” drama film about the working-class motorcycle club culture of the early 1960s. While featuring little explicit sex of any kind, it does provide a glimpse of the leather-clad biker culture of the time in the UK. It was also an early sympathetic treatment of male homosexuality in British film. Amazon
Choke is a 2008 dark comedy based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, written and directed by Clark Gregg. Amazon
When I’ve asked leather guys whether they’d rather make it with a real Con Ed [repair] man or a lawyer who looks like one, the question baffles them. It lies outside the system of their fantasies. In their hearts they may know that the lawyer would be more adventurous and uninhibited lover, but their passion demands he at least appear to be a worker. White, Edmund. 1979 “Sado Machismo”, from The Burning Library: Essays , Knopf, New York, 1994
Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a recovering, self-described “sex addict”, who fakes choking in restaurants so that he can emotionally manipulate his rescuers, which is to pay for supporting his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother Ida (Anjelica Huston). He also works as a Colonial American historical re-enactor, performing a sanitized version of historical times.
Strangeland is a 1998 thriller/horror film written by and starring Dee Snider (of 80s glam metal band Twisted Sister) and directed by John Pieplow. Amazon
The Libertine, also know as La Matriarca, is a 1968 film directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile and starring Catherine Spaak. IMDB
A wealthy man, Franco, suddenly dies and leaves everything to his young, beautiful wife, Margherita (aka Mimi). She finds that he had been seeing a string of mistresses, and sets out on a journey of sexual exploration.
Tokyo Decadence is a 1992 Japanese drama film, directed by Ryu Murakami and starring Miho Nikaido. (All quotations are from the English subtitles.) Amazon
Ai (Japanese for “love”) is a 22-year-old professional submissive sex worker, adrift in 1990s Japan, lacking in direction.
Ai with client.
In the very first scene, Ai is tied up and naked. Her client tells her S&M is all about trust, but then blindfolds her despite her objections. He injects her with something, also apparently without her consent. (Drug use, both giving and receiving, is a recurring motif.)
In Ai’s scenes with her clients, she is awkward and passive, as if she wandered into a stage play and doesn’t know or understand the script. Clients impress their own ideas and archetypes upon her, more like a prop in their visions. Ai’s blank-ness may actually be an asset in her line of work, having little sense of self to interfere with her client’s fantasies.
The yakuza client has Ai pose in front of the skyscraper window.
The second client Ai sees, implicitly a Yakuza gangster, asks her about herself. She says:
Ai: I’ve discovered that I have no talent whatsoever.
After a scene with the gangster and his girlfriend, Ai pulls the bondage gear off and vigorously brushes her teeth. On her way out, the gangster overpays her and says to her:
Gangster: Don’t think you’ve no talent. That’s a cop-out.
Another client wants to be strangled by Ai and another escort while receiving oral. The two women think they accidentally killed him, and are astonished when he suddenly comes back to life.
Yet another client, who initially is friendly enough, proves to be a necrophile who wants to re-enact a specific rape and murder with Ai. When he tries to strangle her, Ai finally resists. He lets her go, but demands his money back. This puts Ai on thin ice with her manager.
Ai and Saki
On a threesome assignment, Ai meets Saki, a pro-dominatrix who deftly commands their masochistic male client (and Ai too). Saki shows the kind of confidence and control Ai lacks. Saki takes Ai to her lavish home, where they hang out. Saki proves to be a serious cocaine user (she snorts, injects and smokes it).
Ai: You must be wealthy.
Saki: Not really. It’s Japan that’s wealthy. But it’s wealth without pride. It creates anxiety, which drives our men into masochism. I’ve made my living out of these men.
Saki gives Ai an unspecified drug that will allegedly give her courage. After her night with Saki, Ai goes on a journey to find her former lover who married another woman, though it’s implied he actually died.
In a post-credit scene, Ai appears on stage, dressed in a Saki-like outfit. She signs something in sign language, then dances in a far more confident way.
Ai at her manager’s office.
I wouldn’t call Ai masochistic. She doesn’t embrace her experiences, but instead seems detached, even confused. It’s different from Lucy in Sleeping Beauty (2011); Ai seems like a person who has lost her way, and looks to others for direction. She watches Saki dominating the client like a person attending a university lecture that they just don’t understand.
BDSM in Tokyo Decadence is not a means to connection or intimacy. It’s a symptom of a dysfunctional society, of men (mostly) who have too much money for their own good, paralleled by the drug use (mostly cocaine and other stimulants) and the gourmet meals. Human connection is what’s missing, and what Ai searches for.
In the Realm of the Senses (aka Ai no Corrida, “Bullfight of Love”) is a 1976 Japanese-French film directed by Nagisa Oshima and starring Eiko Matsuda and Tatsuya Fuji. Amazon
The film is a fictionalized version of the true story of Sada Abe, who in 1936 Japan was arrested for the murder of her lover. She was found carrying his severed penis and testicles in her kimono. The film makes this a story of doomed lovers in a hostile world.
Femina Ridens (aka The Laughing Woman, The Frightened Woman) is a 1969 Italian psychological drama, starring Philippe Leroy and Dagmar Lassander, and directed by Piero Schivazappa. IMDB
Dr. Sayer kidnaps Maria, a young woman, and locks her in his prison-like apartment, saying he will psychologically torture her into loving him, then kill her. Maria, however, is much more than she appears.
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is a 2023 comedy-drama, directed and written by Joanna Arnow and starring Arnow, Scott Cohen and Babak Tafti. IMDB
Ann, a thirty-something woman in New York City, seeks relief from the difficulties with her job and family through submission to various men.
Remedy is a 2013 drama directed by Cheyenne Picardo and written by Picardo et al.
A young woman known only by her nomme de domme, Remedy (Kira Davies), explores the world of professional domination and submission. She has some experience with BDSM at a night club, where she met a woman named Astrid, who hooked her up with a dungeon in NYC. Her motivation isn’t clear, whether it’s money or something else. (She has an unseen boyfriend and works as a children’s tutor.)
