Maitresse

A common thief (Depardieu) breaks into the house of a professional dominatrix (Ogier), and begins to help her "train" her clients. Though this world is alien to his experience, he finds himself falling in love with her. Eventually he discovers that she does this in order to support her son, and he attempts to help her out of this life, which she is not sure she really wants to leave.

Barbet Schroeder's darkly witty meditation on sadomasochism comes to DVD in a typically well-crafted edition from The Criterion Collection. Maitresse has been given a letterboxed transfer to disc in the widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1, which has also been enhanced for anamorphic playback on 16 x 9 monitors. The transfer (which was approved by Schroeder himself) is rich and colorful, and honors the subtle brilliance of Néstor Almendros' cinematography. The audio has been mastered in Dolby Digital Mono; the dialogue is in French, with optional English subtitles. By Criterion's standards, this disc is a bit short on bonus materials, adding only an interview with Barbet Schroeder (albeit a witty and revealing one) and a liner essay from Elliot Stein, but this film isn't likely to ever look or sound better on home video than it does in this release.