"Le plaisir" presents three stories by Guy de Mauppasant. A more precise title would be "le plaisir de l'homme" because in all the stories men are the weak gender, unable to control their instincts.
A suitable subtitle would be "les réactions des femmes". The reactions differ from resignation (first story) to acceptance (second story) to resistance (third story).
In none of the stories a moral judgement is made, but the first and the last are more tragic while the middle one contains comedy elements. Because the middle one is also the biggest (longest) story, in one review the comparison with a religious triptych from the Middle ages is made.
Let me try to make the above somewhat less abstract. The first story is tragic from the male point of view. A man with a mask attends a ball. After a while he becomes unwell. When the mask is taken off it is revealed that the man is rather old. The tragic element is that the man keeps behaving below his age. The mask however does NOT indicate that the man is ashamed of his behaviour (as is the case in "Eyes wide shut" 1999, Stanley Kubrick), it only indicates that he wants to hide his real age.
The second story has comic element. Due to a company outing, a brothel is closed for one day. The male clients become bored and start quarreling with each other. There is no shade of condemnation in this story, nor regarding the girls, nor regarding the clients. In stead the brothel is portrayed as a very useful institute, keeping the social peace.
With respect to the cinematography, the dynamic cameramovements are worth mentioning, and this in a time that the camera was not at all handheld but a heavy piece of equipment.
Once again some examples as illustration. In the first story the camera movements illustrate the hectic of the ball. At the beginning of the second story the camera circles around the brothel, peeping inside windows but staying outside the building. These movements of the camera create a somewhat voyeuristic ambiance.
