I Am Frigid…Why? (1972) Blu-ray Review: Trauma Beneath Exploitation

European sexploitation cinema’s more thoughtful practitioners used erotic frameworks to explore genuine psychological complexity, and Max Pécas‘ I Am Frigid…Why? demonstrates this approach at its most surprisingly sophisticated. Following his commercial success with I Am a Nymphomaniac, Pécas crafted a companion piece examining sexual dysfunction through trauma recovery narratives.

Young Doris (Sandra Julien) suffers a brutal assault by her incestuous siblings, leaving her psychologically unable to experience physical pleasure despite retaining sexual desire. Her subsequent journey through various therapeutic and professional environments—including prostitution, experimental theater, and high-end escort services—becomes an exploration of trauma’s lasting effects on intimate relationships and personal identity within patriarchal social structures.

I Am Frigid…Why? emerged during European cinema’s broader engagement with themes touching on sexual liberation, when filmmakers could address previously taboo subjects with relative directness. Pécas’s approach reflects the period’s faith in psychoanalytic solutions while maintaining enough critical distance to question the very therapeutic systems supposedly offering liberation. The film’s commercial failure, which Pécas maintained was attributed to its overtly clinical title, demonstrates how audiences often preferred fantasy to psychological realism even within exploitation contexts.

88 Films’ Blu-ray benefits from a recent HD master that showcases Robert Lefebvre’s distinctive cinematography. The enhanced visual presentation reveals Lefebvre’s signature techniques—canted angles, colored lighting filters, kaleidoscope effects—that give the film its dreamlike aesthetic quality. The restoration from the boutique label properly renders the original French aspect ratio (1.66:1) though through the remaster the age of the film shows and the color tends to skew a bit on the orange/light yellow.

Both French and English audio tracks are preserved, with the original French maintaining superior overall quality. The disc includes newly translated English subtitles for complete accessibility to the French dialogue, while extended English sequences within the French track demonstrating how different international markets approached the material. The visual essay supplement, usually not my favorite extra, by Chris O’Neill is excellent and provides valuable context about Sandra Julien’s brief but influential career peak in European adult cinema.

I Am Frigid…Why? offers considerably more psychological depth than its provocative title suggests, using softcore conventions to examine authentic trauma and healing processes. This release preserves an interesting artifact from European cinema’s more adventurous period, when serious subjects could be addressed through unconventional commercial frameworks.