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.

One of films like a box with memories. I saw it when I was teenager and the fascination remains intact after decades, more than the sexual impulses. Because , in bizarre way, it remains a manifesto about opened marriage, bisexuality, manner to expose sex scenes and bitter poetry of a story representing a frame or , in happy perspective, a sketch. And, no doubts, for the way to propose to viewer her Emmmanuelle by Sylvia Kristel. Short, seductive for late poetry and, sure, it sounds very wrong, innocence.

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!

Whether you like it or not this is a milestone in the history of cinema. Like the James Bond movie Thunderball set new standards for violence in mainstream cinema, Emmanuel set new standards for sexual content.

Certainly the film was an amazing hit and box office records quickly tumbled. It is the most seen French film of all time and holds the record for the longest run at a single non-multiplex cinema (18 months in Paris, France). After this film sex on film was a completely different beast and many directors (new and old) used part of the template.

Anyone one wanting a dirty movie will be sadly disappointed. Here sex is treated as natural, rarely earth shattering and almost matter-of-fact. The bedroom is only one of the locations where the act takes place - in fact I am surprised the participants weren't arrested!

Sylvia Kristel plays a newly married wife of 22 (19 in reality) with no previous film experience (this is no accident). Previously she had only appeared in commercials. She is the innocent who becomes corrupted, but it is a journey of corruption she is happy to take. Her nice-but-cold older husband is also all for it. The circumstances behind their marriage are not even touched upon - but maybe it was a marriage of convenience as he is a world travelling diplomat?

For a film aimed at men, men are rarely shown in a great light. Emmanuel finds she is bisexual and looks happier with women than with men - who commonly treat her as a sex object. If she appeared brighter she could even be viewed as a feminist icon, but even the high queen of feminism Germaine Greer says she is a "bimbo."

Lot of things are dated in this movie. The view of casual unprotected sex certainly. There is even a casual rape. But its use of third-world locations is a treat on the eye (on the big screen especially) and there is nothing substandard about the production. Even the music is first class and still does the rounds on its own.

The photography is as good as you would see in a big budget epic. The film moves along at a slow but steady pace and you do look forward to finding out what happens next or how a situation is resolved.

The film is nothing but a study of an open marriage from the female perspective. The fact that she yields to the experiences and becomes more sexual bold is clearly pleasing to the male viewer. No doubt this was a date movie for males those that wanted their partners to follow her lead.

This is a clever erotic movie. It stays in the mind long after seeing it and Kristel looks comfortable with or without her clothes. She is far from a great actress, but she does have poise and dignity. The sequels that followed are nothing more than attempts to extract more money from a franchise and are merely routine entertainment.