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.

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!

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!

Pac-Man is the grand old man of video games, Hulk Hogan is the grand old man of pro wrestling; Sylvia Kristel is the great dame of the softcore porn industry, and even today is still revered for her role as Emmanuelle.

Emmanuelle came out in the swinging seventies and still stands as one of the finest films of the genre. The Emmanuelle series features great scenery from exotic parts of the world, superb sensuality, and the fact that man-made babes are disallowed here.

22 year-old Kristel plays Emmanuelle (based on author Emmanuelle Arsan's erotica), a recently married young woman who is quite new to the world of sensuality. Married to a much older man, and free to explore her sexuality without any consequence, we see her going from place to place, yearning to learn more.

There's a lot to like here. Steamy settings in Thailand, lust on a squash court, a great fight scene in which the victor would get to have a "philosophical discussion" with Emmanuelle, skinny dipping, and a neat trick that a showgirl can do with a cigarette are some of the attractions. Miss Kristel is absolutely gorgeous and plays the innocent beautifully. The acting is a lot better than the usual American softcore film is. A film worth a look; you'll look at these films at a different light after this one.

BTW, I've seen both the original and English-dubbed versions; in the latter, the voices for Emmanuelle and Marie-Ange (played by 17 year-old Christine Boisson) are whack and cute at the same time. Especially in their conversations.

The biggest cinema surprise hit of 1975, based on a book by Emmanuelle Arsan, made Dutch model Sylvia Kristel a famous actress. The first thing you'll notice is that over 30 years later, the fascination with the exotic is still strong. It was worth going to Thailand and present the real thing instead of shooting "Asian" scenes in a park in Spain or Italy like many other European film crews did at the time. And it surely is one of the very few erotic films where you have to pay attention to the dialogs. It was important to explain the bizarre idea of "freedom" which the scandalous novel had introduced - arguably a two-edged sword. It is said that dependency is humiliating, but aren't scenes like when Emmanuelle is given as a "prize" to the Thai boxer even more humiliating? Easy to see why the movie stirred up discussions - which made even more people want to watch it. The ambiguity of this "freedom" in "Emmanuelle" thus was used for marketing. In her autobiography "Undressing Emmanuelle", Kristel recalls one scene with real horror: near the end, when she is raped by the opium smoker. The young man didn't understand a word of what she or the director said, so he just grabbed her. Sylvia's disgust is visible, and if the sequels hadn't been softer, she probably wouldn't have made them. The first Emmanuelle film still was experimenting with both visual style and a provocative attitude; it may have created a certain formula even though it didn't completely obey its rules, since it was rather the more gentle and glossy second Emmanuelle film which perfected the formula. I voted 7/8/6/4/6/7 for the six cinema films of the series.