Provocative director Catherine Breillat delves into female sexuality with “The Last Mistress” (“Une Vielle Maitresse”), an exploration into carnal desire seen through turbulent societal outcast Vellini (Asia Argento) and ladies man Ryno (Fu’ad Ait Aattou), set in early-19th century Paris.

"THE LAST MISTRESS"

Three stars

STARRING: Asia Argento, Fu’ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida and Claude Sarraute

DIRECTOR: Catherine Breillat

RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes RATING: Not rated, but R equivalent for sex and nudity.

THE LOWDOWN: Scandalous 19th-century affair rattles aristocratic Paris. In French with English subtitles.

The story is adapted from Jules-Amedee Barbey d’Aurevilly’s controversial 1851 novel of the same name, condemned in its day for its favorable treatment of extramarital promiscuity. Here, Breillat (“Fat Girl,” “Romance”) presents the couple’s emotionally charged, animalistic 10-year relationship as unavoidable as breathing.

The handsome, womanizing Ryno pledges at the outset to be monogamous with Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), his virginal, aristocratic fiancee. He even, willingly, reveals the details of the turbulent relationship with his mistress to the young woman’s open-minded grandmother (Claude Sarraute), including a surprising secret.

Vellini, the illegitimate daughter of an Italian princess and a Spanish bullfighter, has turned her back on whatever tenuous hold she had on respectable society by abandoning her marriage to an elderly English nobleman.

Vellini, as effectively portrayed by Argento, is tempestuous and foul-tempered. She flaunts her unconventionality by smoking cigars, and is prone to wild, impulsive actions that include cutting Ryno in the face with a knife and, after he is shot in a duel, drinking his blood.

She is also sensually alluring and magnetic. When Ryno, who at first glance tells a friend, within earshot of Vellini, that she looks like an “ugly mutt,” he has little idea of the infatuation that will soon consume him and turn into, he says, “unending fury.”

Argento is all heat in her role as the confident Vellini, but pretty-boy Ryno, a first-time actor, offers a weak counterbalance to her smoldering presence. Ryno’s appeal is best understood when Vellini says she “hates anything feminine, except in young men.”

The film also works as visually sumptuous costume drama and amusing class study. It is well served by veteran French actors Michael Lonsdale and Yolande Moreau in their roles as society busybodies.