Emmanuelle

There is a whole raft of French 1970ies porn movies, and while a surprising number of them take place in beautiful French châteaus -- and their less picturesque cellars -- and are set to la-la-music that would bore the pants off Enya, quite a few of them are rather good, actually -- and really filthy.

Here we have the movie that started it all, and yet I was disappointed. Granted, it's beautifully photographed, and the sex scenes pack a lot of sizzle, but the rest was lame and shallow. Emmanuelle is a young woman who -- you guessed correctly -- wants to explore her sexuality. What I had to accomplish singled-handedly in the grubby furtivity of our garden shed with the bra pages from the Sears catalogue, she can have a go at with the cream of beautiful French actresses and all the Oriental totty they couldn't beat off with a soiled stick in beautiful Thailand. And in a squash court. You'd think the permutations were endless, but what it boils down to is a long alternation of heady talk (maybe my French isn't good enough, but I thought it was all gibberish) followed up by breathy sex scenes (which are strictly softcore, by the way). Maybe I'm the exception from the rule here, but I don't only watch a movie such as this for the sex scenes, I actually do care about the rest of the movie.

The story disintegrates further when Emmanuelle, after two encounters with random men and a romance with a younger girl and an older woman, inexplicably shacks up with a grubby old man, and reaches its absolute low point when he subjects her to gang rape -- which is all the more revolting because it is filmed in wonky ouh-ah soft focus.

This was the first in a series of erotic films which were made possible by the increasingly liberal moral climate of the seventies and eighties and which enjoyed a success de scandale. The main character, Emmanuelle herself, is the attractive young wife of Jean, an older French diplomat in Bangkok, and the film chronicles her various sexual escapades. There is not, in fact, any real plot. Emmanuelle is seen having sex with her husband, with other men and, even more, with other women; lesbianism is, along with swimming, squash and cocktail parties, one of the main diversions of the bored ladies of Bangkok's French expatriate community.

Although this was one of the first productions of the mainstream cinema to deal with erotic subject-matter frankly, it is not particularly explicit. Much of the sexual action is implied, and what is shown directly is often shot from a distance. The eroticism of the film is softened by the way it is photographed. Outdoor scenes are shot in a blurry soft focus against a background of brilliant sunshine; indoor ones, by contrast, are generally dark or dimly lit. The leading actress, Sylvia Kristel, with her slim, boyish figure and the gentle beauty of her features, seems perfectly at home in this soft, unreal-seeming atmosphere. Nevertheless, there are still scenes that seem shocking even thirty years on. One of Emmanuelle's lovers, Marie-Ange, is a teenage girl only dubiously of the age of consent, something that seems to have caused less consternation in the seventies than it would do today. (The actress who played her was in fact eighteen, but the intention seems to have been to make the pigtailed, lollipop-sucking Marie-Ange a bisexual Lolita figure). Emmanuelle's Thai houseboy, aroused by the sight of her and her husband making love, pursues and has sex with one of the housemaids. It is never made clear whether or not this is an act of rape; the boundary between consensual and non-consensual sex is blurred in a manner which I found distasteful.

Like certain other Continental erotic films of this period, the 'Emmanuelle' series is marked by a certain pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. This is particularly apparent in the second half of this film when the heroine, after being jilted by one of her lesbian lovers (the oddly named Bee), takes up with the elderly Mario, a man who, despite his grey hair and advancing years, fancies himself both as a lover and as a thinker. The rest of the film is frequently punctuated by Mario's thoughts on the meaning of life, carefully enunciated in a deep, gravelly voice, somewhere between an Old Testament prophet and an Orson Welles sherry commercial, which gives them the air of oracular pronouncements. Sex, in Mario's philosophy, ceases to be a taboo and becomes a duty. One owes it to oneself, and indeed to the world in general, to experience physical pleasure in as many ways as possible, with as many partners as possible, and to liberate oneself from all ways of thinking that might hinder one from this aim. The consequence of not doing so is that one will fail in one's solemn and sacred duty to Live Life To The Full.

It is this sort of Existentialism-Lite, Sartre meets Hugh Hefner, that makes the film seem so dated today, far more than do trivial period details such as Jean's sideburns or the garish lime-green paintwork of his sports car. This sort of cod-philosophy became one of the first casualties of the AIDS epidemic. If we watch 'Emmanuelle' today, it is not as an erotic experience, despite the undoubted charm of its heroine, and certainly not as an intellectual one, but as a slight, inadvertently amusing period piece. 4/10

Going into this film, the only thing that I was really worried about was that it might be boring. It's not that I particularly have anything against pornography; but what's taboo now and what was taboo over three decades ago are different things, and besides that; you can only watch people having sex for so long before it begins to get dull. However, I was wrong; the film isn't boring, and while the focus is usually on sex; there actually is a story, and it actually is quite interesting! The film is unlikely to appeal to people that are interested in the more perverted side of sex as the film doesn't feature anything above lesbian sex, but the tender way that the story is presented as well as the French style give it a very erotic feel throughout. The plot, as you might expect, focuses on the character 'Emmanuelle', a young woman that lives with her husband; an older man, in Bangkok. They share a sort of teacher-pupil relationship, and they're also very liberal where adultery is concerned, as neither one cares too much about the other's antics with other people.

This film inspired a barrage of slightly less tasteful sequels, as well as a range of Italian films, many of which were directed by sleaze God Joe D'Amato. I don't think the filmmakers intended Emmanuelle to be associated so closely with sleaze, and actually at times; it doesn't really feel like a porn film; more of a drama with sex. I've got no idea how many taboos this film broke upon it's release over three decades ago, but the fact that it doesn't really break many today does it a favour where class is concerned as the film never feels too dirty, and this bodes well with the high class of the lead characters and setting. Sylvia Kristel takes the lead role, and is believable as a sexually naive young woman. She is joined by a number of eye-pleasing actresses, including Christine Boisson and Marika Green, and all get to take their clothes off in several scenes. The settings in which it all takes place are pleasing also, and the film is of a much higher class than a lot of nowadays porn. I'm surprised that Emmanuelle still has a notorious reputation, as it's only soft-core at best; but it's definitely worth seeing, if only to see how much things have changed!

"Emmanuelle" is an elegant, excellently photographed movie, but too often rolls in a syrupy pretension…

It is about a young, French woman who joins her husband in Bangkok… There much of Emmanuelle's allure is that she isn't shy about her body, or even afraid to engage in sexual activity in semipublic places…

There are a number of rousing, lesbian meetings very typical of French cinema, coupled with encounters with handsome, sensitive men who enjoy superficial lovemaking… The film really deals in sensual images and an over-blown, continuous repeating of its erotic philosophy… There is sensual intimacy between Emmanuelle and the other women that is rare in the cinema…

My favorite moment when teen-ager Christine Boisson comes upon the nude Sylvia Kristel asleep… Without embarrassment, she leans forward and unusually caresses gently and affectionately Emmanuelle's breast with her finger

Rarely has a foreign film of such magnitude was so eagerly anticipated in America as when the movie "Emmanuelle" was released in the summer of 1974. Advance publicity had done the trick. The film was based on the controversial and quite scandalous 1957 novel by the pseudonymous Emmanuelle Arsan that was banned by the French Government and the Prime Minister of France not to mention several Asian countries where the film was not seen until 20 years later. But in spite having it banned,it was a shock only to see it become France's all-time box office champ. Even to this day,and in spite the film's 30th Anniversary,Emmanuelle is considered to be among the best soft-core adult films ever made and since then it has continued to draw well long after the success of it ran here in the states,despite negative reviews from critics and equally word of mouth,is one of the true mysteries of the cinema,and a protégé of what the 1970's adult cinema was to become. For one the film was a overnight sensation,and from this film spawned a record number of 13 Emmanuelle "sequel" films,each starring different actresses,ranging from Emmanuelle Arsan,Laura Gemser,Holly Sampson,etc; a late-night adult cable series based on the character,not to mention several "hard-core" adult films based on this too that went straight to video,and to this the series has become second to James Bond as one of the longest-running series in the history of the cinema,and as of this writing the Emmanuelle series is still going strong,30 years later.

But getting back to "Emmanuelle" the simple formula which was from the original and was to be used again in several of sequels of the series has the type of a beautiful "free-spirited" woman who seeks her identity through various sexual encounters with everyone and almost everywhere and with everyone in the cast;lots of stripping and nude sunbathing,full-frontal nudity,graphic sexual content that has acts of sodomy(where there is no protection of sexually transmitted diseases) including several acts of homosexuality between the men and the women(lesbianism),incompetent males who want nothing else than a piece of a woman's flesh and to do what they want with her,and extreme close-ups of women in the throes of sexual ecstasy with heavy breathing on the soundtrack-but it is done with lush music and plush sets. Unlike the other foreign films that go by the "soft-core" method,the simple formula for Emmanuelle would be used again in several films including another French erotica classic,"The Story Of O",the next year,1975.

Was "Emmanuelle" a surefire moneymaker at America's reveal houses? When this film was released in 1974,the audience that were going to see this film weren't exactly popular with couples,but it was the men that were going back to see this film not once,but many times since the majority of the viewing audience were males,and their dates since the women in the audience may find this to be too shocking since it was very degrading to females. The film's distributor,Columbia Pictures-at the time was facing bankruptcy and was still smarting from one of the biggest flops with the musical disaster,the remake of "Lost Horizon" (1973)-had thought enough of Emmanuelle to make it the studio's second film to be "X-rated",and the first since "Bob,Carol,Ted and Alice"(1970) which was not very successful. Realizing that there was a major audience who wanted to sample a sex film,the studio(Columbia)wisely booked Emmanuelle into first-run theaters,making it a bona fide hit for the studio,which at the time no one particularly liked it since the French were preferring to it as "a masterpiece of eroticism".

The film gave an unknown Dutch-British actress Sylvia Kristel,who was very young when this film came out and made her an overnight sensation,which made her a major movie star,who would go on to star in three more "Emmanuelle" films. However,Sylvia Kristel is surprisingly good in a bad film;her lack of inhibitions,particularly in several scenes in the way she dresses,has an undeniably erotic effect and from there the she really shines in her performance despite the negative reviews. To also note that Kristel(the first Emmanuelle)is one of the few actresses to make to jump from sex films to mainstream films that are rated "R","PG",and "G". Most recently,out of the 13 films that were made based on "Emmanuelle" that series to this day is still going strong.

Happy 30th Anniversary-Emmanuelle!