Wanda, the heroine of ”Seduction: The Cruel Woman,” goes around smashing sexual stereotypes and social taboos with icy self-possession and a mysteriously satisfied smile.A businesswoman as well as a dominatrix, Wanda purrs at a male journalist who has come to interview her about the opening of her new ”gallery,” where flesh is whipped in public performances and private, slavish fantasies are fulfilled. Monika Treut and Elfi Mikesch’s feature film tells the story of Venus in Furs anew, contextualizing it in the history of perversions on the one hand and contemporary cinema and performance art on the other. The film represents a striking appropriation of masochistic aesthetics in a discourse of feminism and lesbian sexuality of the mid-1980s.