Title: Claudine Studio: Cal Vista Pictures Director: Martin Incognito Cast: Ovidio, HPG, Alban Ceray, Jade, Manu Ferrara, Lilith, Estelle Laurence, Jean-Seb Bach, Thibault Genres:: Fetish, BDSM, European, Female Domination Condoms: Sometimes Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

The noir-ish plot, such as it is, revolves around Claudine (Ovidio), a professional dominatrix, whose client mysteriously drowns in an aquarium during a session, and the cop (HPG) who pursues her. In the meantime, Claudine stumbles across a puzzling videotape that shows every sordid detail of her personal and professional life. Who is videotaping her, and why?

Along the way we meet more of Claudine's clients and see the cop's foray into a sex club, whose owner buys Claudine's erotic drawings.

The film's scenes include BDSM, anal, whipping, and foot worship. The ambience is artsy without being annoying or intrusive—trippy camera effects and weird angles are staged with care, not haphazardly thrown in, and there are a lot of nice details: When Claudine's ass hits a light switch during a tryst, for example, the lights turn on and off; the effect is handled straightforwardly, and adds to the scene's rhythm and urgency instead of distracting from it. Even the odder scenes (scenes with fetishes I didn't even know existed) were hot. You might expect dog leashes in a fetish/b&d movie, but CLAUDINE takes it one step further—the women wearing them not only crawl around on the floor, but are painted like black-and-white dalmatian dogs. (Why dalmatians, I don't know. Someone somewhere must have a thing for them.) Instead of playing up the dog angle, though, the scene becomes a hot, messy orgy of body paint and body fluids. Other standout scenes include Claudine's artfully choreographed session with a couple, and some funny shots that take the phrase "running gag" literally.

CLAUDINE's other pluses include the (for the most part) decent English dubbing, and the music, which, thankfully, doesn't suffer from pornmusicitis—it's a cool mix of electronic, organ (heh), and straight rock. With its artsy ambience, CLAUDINE is hip enough to play at a party (the kind of party where you'd play porn, I mean) and hot enough to enjoy by yourself. My only quibble is with the cop's badly dubbed, faux Brooklyn accent. Why oh why must all cops in all movies everywhere have Brooklyn accents? But that's really the only misstep in a film that otherwise has a lot to offer BDSM enthusiasts. Claudine
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