The Ceremony

In 1984, Catherine Robbe-Grillet wrote Cérémonies de femmes, one of the first books to portray the BDSM community. She spent her entire life at the side of her husband, novelist and screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet (the writer of Last Year in Marienbad, among others), who was something of a glitterati. While her husband was thinking up a nouveau roman, Catherine, working under the pseudonym Jeanne de Berg, devoted herself to the art of eroticism, directing secret sadomasochistic ceremonies at their family castle. Her performances of suffering and love were purely art for the sake of art. Lina Mannheimer, the director of The Ceremony, has scrupulously reconstructed those ceremonies, having conducted interviews with the intriguing dominatrix and her devoted acolytes. They defy the stereotypes that suggest that BDSM is the result of childhood trauma or a playground for deviants. In an emotionally disciplined manner, Catherine and her circle talk about the expansion of their sensual and emotional experiences, a practice whose roots can be found in the literary works of de Sade, Sacher-Masoch, Bataille, and Catherine's former husband, Alain Robbe-Grillet.