andrey-balandin

Emmanuelle (2024) holds a mirror to our present, a world fundamentally changed since the 1970s when the original film broke taboos and reveled in sexual liberation. Today, the boundaries that once needed breaking have faded; what remains is not liberation, but a sense of detachment. Diwan's reboot, starring Noémie Merlant, finds Emmanuelle not as a symbol of transgression, but as a quality controller for a luxury hotel chain-tasked with evaluating satisfaction in a world saturated with choices and dulled desires. How fitting is it that finding flaws in perfection is now a job.

Rather than shock or titillate, the film envelops its characters in the artificiality of modern life. The hotel's reflective surfaces and synthesized environments echo the emotional distance and solitude that define Emmanuelle's journey. Her sensual encounters are less about pleasure and more about searching for lost feeling - each interaction clinical, almost as if undertaken for research rather than passion. In this world, sexuality is omnipresent but rarely fulfilling; connection is elusive, and true intimacy is harder to find than ever.

If the film feels restrained in its eroticism, it is by design. The lack of explicitness mirrors the reality that, for many, sex is readily available but rarely transformative. Diwan's Emmanuelle is less about breaking taboos and more about confronting the loneliness and longing that persist in an age of supposed freedom. Yet, amid the coldness, the film suggests that beauty and hope endure - perhaps, the way out of our entrapment lies in courage and spontaneity.

I don't find watching people covered in blood kiss romantic. Cannibalism is sickening and no amount of beautiful scenery or chemistry between the actors can compensate for the disgust of all the gore. The characters accepting themselves for who they are is all good and well, but as a viewer I am not taken in. I cannot switch from having just watched a gory murder with characters covered in blood all over to suddenly enjoying romance of young love on a road trip through beautiful scenery - it doesn't work like that. I am still shocked and disgusted, I cannot take in any of the supposed beauty. Sorry, but I just don't find cannibals relatable.

This movie could have been simply an experience of wallowing in female nudity. But the moderately revealing scenes are woven into an engaging plot following an expensive nude photography project jeopardized by clashing esthetic and business views. The the photographer's search for adoration and the models search for expression collides with the constraints imposed by the project business lead, resulting in contentions over the borderlines between beauty and obscenity, expressiveness and provocation, safe business choices and daring artistic choices. The clash culminates at the art display where the project final result is revealed and all participants speak their mind with little reservations.