39 ans ... Mariée et Ouverte à Tous

Kendo calls this No. 5 in his "Lustful Housewives" series for Marc Dorcel, but methinks the veteran French porn producer ("luxure since 1979") should get his money back. The prolific British fetish director has turned in footage not up to release quality.

As usual, Mr. K is loquacious in his self-serving "Making of"/BTS comments on the production, and what he has to say clashes diametrically with the actual video feature presented. He describes all manner of plot and characterization, wholly absent from the finished product. It's theoretically possible that M. Dorcel tampers with his directors' cuts and removed all the non-sex content, but more likely I infer that Kendo keeps his narrative ideas in mind while shooting but fails to realize them on screen for the viewer's delectation. Even in this spoon-fed DVD (and beyond) era, I insist that the content has to be just that - included in the film proper, and not relegated to some idiotic "Bonus" crap like "Deleted Scenes", "Extended Scenes", "Commentary Track" or "Alternate Version".

Apart from Dorcel favorite Ava Courcelles, Kendo's cast is no-name for a change, and minus the busty or at least striking looking females he usually delivers, dating back to his BDSM/fetish videos made a decade earlier. This is purportedly a depiction of infidelity in Chabrol land -that particular bourgeois class the late great New Waver depicted in dozens of classics.

I will merely cite some of the key discrepancies between K's intentions and what the English-track narrator tells us as we watch an hour and a half of mechanical pantomime sex acts by players afflicted with industrial strength "sang-froid".

Despite the title (all of these wives movies from Dorcel have Age as the title issue), the heroine Audrey played by Courcelles) is identified as 36 years old by femme narrator. A key sequence has Mike Angelo humping a woman in his office and taking lots of phone selfies of the two of them as they have sex. Narrator tells us quite explicitly that it's his wife Cassandra (Mya Diamond) visiting him at work, while Kendo (more accurately but how are we to know?) informs us Behind the Scenes that the woman is his assistant and the photos are being relayed back to wife at home to enjoy - sort of a Gallic response to the idiotic U.S. sub-genre of "hotwifing" videos - I guess we could call this genre "chaudmari" action.

Now had Mr. K shot a brief scene of the wife watching her phone at home (and masturbating to the images of Mike and Mya Diamond in the office, of course), the actual scene in "39 ans" might have made some sense and even had an impact. Instead, we get generic sex as the director relentlessly, over the course of over 100 features so far, refuses to let things as old-fashioned as storytelling and acting (yes, he never hires actors only "models" per the maestro himself) intrude on his artsy-fartsy features. At the rate I'm going I will soon have seen 50% of his output, but must admit my interest is waning - I wish he would throw me a bone once in a while in the form of a recognizable short story in order to keep me awake.