Maîtresse (1976)
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.
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What critics compared Maîtresse to
Despite citing Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris as a tonal touchstone, and nodding cheekily to American Gigolo/Psycho, the result smacks more of Adrian Lyne’s blandly naff 9½ Weeks, the S&M frankness of Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse usurped by the archaic softcore of Just Jaeckin’s The Story of O.
Schroeder's classic of underground love sits well alongside the masochistic undertones of Last Tango in Paris.
Nostalgie de la boue—literally, “nostalgia for mud”—tends to motivate Barbet Schroeder's fiction films, which have focused on heroin addicts (More), hippies (The Valley Obscured by Clouds), masochists (Maitresse), and gamblers (Tricheurs).