Cat People

I mentioned in yesterday's post on To The Devil, A Daughter that Nastassja Kinski was mistakingly thought to have been the actress in its bondage scenes.

It was just a few years later, in the 1982 remake of Cat People, that Kinski would get her own bondage scene, and it was a banger (literally!).

Kinski plays a young woman who's part of a race of shapeshifters. She is forever unable to have sex, or else she will turn into a panther.

And so her boyfriend, played by John Heard, ties her down to the bed. She does this willingly, because she no longer wants to live life as a human.

Kinski is completely nude in this scene, tied down in spread-eagle fashion. It's a classic bondage scene in mainstream cinema.

She gets her wish on all accounts.

At the very beginning of the film is another scene showing a young woman getting tied to a tree.

It's part of a ritual, taking place centuries before the main events of the film, that tries to explain how the Cat People came to be.

She's wearing a simple shift and is barefoot.