Upon its release on Dorcel’s streaming platform and subsequent DVD/Blu-ray release in Q2 2024, By Any Other Name drew comparisons to Radley Metzger’s 1970s classics ( The Image , The Opening of Misty Beethoven ) and Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta for its refusal to separate theology from sexuality.
The inciting incident is a masquerade ball hosted at a chateau outside Lyon. The theme is “The Unseen Self.” Guests are required to wear masks that obscure not just their faces but their perceived identities. It is here that Alix, donning a delicate silver domino mask, encounters a stranger in a black leather half-mask. Their conversation is electric, intellectual, and deeply flirtatious. She does not realize—or perhaps subconsciously chooses not to—that the stranger is her own husband. By Any Other Name -DORCEL- -2024-
Critics within the adult industry praised the film’s pacing, though some mainstream reviewers (in outlets like Le Monde and Variety , who have begun covering high-end erotica) noted that the film’s middle third sags slightly under the weight of its own philosophical ambitions. One recurring critique: the final act, where the masks are removed and the couple must reconcile their fantasy with reality, feels rushed. The film offers a neat, romantic resolution—a newlywed-like re-commitment—that some viewers felt betrayed the darker, more ambiguous questions the first two acts raised. Upon its release on Dorcel’s streaming platform and
By Any Other Name (Dorcel, 2024): A Rose of Desire in a Garden of Power Director: Luca De Sade (as credited) Studio: Dorcel (Marc Dorcel) It is here that Alix, donning a delicate
By Any Other Name is ultimately a film about the fragility of long-term desire. Its thesis is quietly radical: that we may need fictions—masks, aliases, roles—to access the most authentic parts of ourselves. The rose, regardless of its name, does indeed smell sweet. But the film adds a crucial corollary: sometimes, to smell the rose anew, we must pretend we have never seen it before.