Venus in Furs is based on the famous 1869 novel by the Austrian writer Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who described the concept of masochism for the first time in literature (and with his initials gave the concept of SM a name).The film comprises three levels of time and narrative which are linked together. It is difficult to tell which of these levels is reality, especially as they do not differ in style. The film starts with a shot of a young man, Severin von Kusiemski, who is sitting on a sofa in a huge classicist buil¡ding. On a different level, the same young man makes a con¡tract with a woman, Wanda von Dunayev, and becomes her servant during a train journey.A third layer comprises the sexual fantasies of the youth about himself and Wanda. In these fantasies, they live out a classical sado-masochistic situation. He is the slave and she is the punishing mistress. There is however a paradox in their relationship. While Severin believes in his role as masochist, Wanda acts from love more than from conviction.The film includes extreme close-ups of their bodies and is set in the chill impersonal mood of the classicist architecture, which serves to accentuate the feeling of subservience while creating an alienating, timeless atmosphere. The black and white images of the film are lit in high-contrast and confirm the unreal, dreamlike and 19th-century mood of the film. The dialogues are sparse and the form is really that of a classical silent movie.
