Bacchanales sexuelles

There are two ways to approach this movie. If you're looking for a softcore porn knock-off you will no doubt find it very strange, but you probably won't be disappointed. If you're a Jean Rollin fan though you won't find it strange enough, and you probably will be. The problem with this movie is that it is VERY heavily padded with the typical boring, mechanical softcore grinding scenes. It's not that this detracts from the plot--this is a Rollin film after all with the usual deliciously bizarre if completely inconsequential story--but it does take away from the strangely beautiful images and haunting atmosphere that characterize the director's best work. Rollin seemed to realize this and used a pseudonym on the film, even before it was retitled "Fly Me the French Way" (what the hell does that mean, anyway?) and had some pre-credit sequence from what is obviously a completely different movie slapped onto it.

I do have to take exception with some of the previous reviews which claim the women in this movie aren't attractive. So these French actresses need to shave their armpits, they're still preferable to the ridiculously over-sized silicone breasts attached to anorexic American "actresses" who are obviously just punching the clock when they're doing sex scenes. Call me un-American . . .

honestly, the best part about this film is the costumes... and the possibility that Donatella Versace herself may have gotten her look from the character "Malvina." I was not really interested in the sex scenes - which are tame for sure, but the story - which is muddled and inconsequential - could have been interesting if it had been fleshed out more. I got this sent to me for a viewing and we honestly assumed it was going to be better than it was - but if you like camp - and lots of it, you probably will not be disappointed. The maid catfight is somewhat entertaining, and I loved those kidnappers' outfits. Tres chic indeed.

So-so Jean Rollin sexploitation flick, about a chick (schoolgirl hitchhiker herself, Joëlle Coeur) who house sits her cousin's apartment, has lesbian sex while she's there, gets involved in kidnappings, and must rescue her lesbian lover from a sex cult.

The apartment is quite nice looking, so is Joëlle, but overall the film doesn't have the same hauntingly beautiful visuals that I've come to enjoy so much from Rollin. It is not at all up to some of Rollin's other work: no vampires, no zombies, less atmospherics, and sparse dialogue filling up the overlong run time. What we're left with is no different than most other soft core porn/ horror titles from the 1970s.

Film's opening title scene is fun, a slightly Dada-influenced sequence, culminating with a cool, old house (think The Addams Family's mansion) but what the hell that has to do with the rest of the film, I cannot figure. And why do rat caricatures suddenly appear?

Pay close attention when Joelle first walks into the apartment, a poster for Rollin's earlier Vampire Nue is visible on the wall.

Bacchanales Sexuelles begins in a garishly, Jess Franco-ian fashion with a mysterious, fabulously attired exotic blond, Malvina (Britt Anders) making enquiries over the current whereabouts of a journalist in her splendidly sordid-looking office. We later discover that the imperious, Malvina is a nefarious, slave-making, polymorphously perverse pseudo-sorceress! This debased, blackmailing matriarch uses her ensorcelled initiates to furiously scintillate her luridly licentious desires! With a threadbare plot mirroring the flimsy garments these delightful Gallic starlets so blithely discard, director, Michele Gentil (Jean Rollin) proceeds alacritously to the fulsome fleshly frolics that form the sleekly attractive backbone of his daringly illicit romp. Bacchanales Sexuelles gleefully exposes more perfectly formed rumps than the fevered filth of fellow French sensualist the Marquis de Sade!

While 'Bacchanales Sexuelles' is narratively sparse, the playful director's sublimely sensuous skin-flick is far from frugal when it comes to diverting displays of energetically performed, multifarious examples of physically amorous dexterity! Once the breathtakingly beautiful Valerie (Joelle Coeur) has taken up comfortable residence in her absent Cousin's agreeably palatial, handsomely Bohemian apartment, she proceeds with great dispatch to hungrily explore every nubile nook and insatiable cranny the curious Valerie zealously comes across!

There are all too few vintage soft core smut fests that so pleasantly revive both the somnolent spirit and other more corporeal appendages than, Jean Rollin's passionately pulchritudinous exploration of epicurean exotica! Happily, very little is left to the imagination, therefore giving the more avidly skin-seeking celluloid sensualist a ringside seat to some of the moist sublime B-Movie burlesque this silken side of Joseph Sarno! These uniquely edifying visions of Gallic Grindhouse's finely-flanked felines, Joelle Coeur, titillating terror twins, Catherine & Marie-Pierre Castel, and the delightfully elfin Annie 'Lips of Blood' Belle prove deliciously irresistible! The supremely slinky, never less than funky lounge score by groove-master, Rex Hilton is pitch perfect sleazy listening!

The main character in this film, named Valerie, house-sits for her absentee cousin. She's lonely, and scared to be in the empty house by herself. So one night, she immediately summons her pal Sophie to come over, and keep her company. The two women drink vodka, and indulge in sizzling hot lesbian sex together.

Valerie and Sophie have a great time with each other, until Sophie is kidnapped by a strange cult of sex-fiends. The plot then revolves around Valerie trying to find Sophie, and rescue Sophie from her captors. But not before Valerie has had a chance to enjoy prolonged, decadent sexual trysts, with various lovers.

Marie-France Morel as Sophie, is the only cast member who stands-out. Marie was a good choice, to play the sensuous, yet vulnerable-looking Sophie. Pale and diminutive, Sophie seems like a waif who needs to be looked after. It's easy to see why she was the one who was snatched away in the night, by the kidnappers.

Like many French films, the pace of this film was excruciatingly slow. The story-line is nearly impossible to follow. And illicit sex between the characters, seems to be the centerpiece of this movie, to the detriment of actual character and plot development. Watch this film, only if you want to see soft-core porn involving sexy-looking, lust-crazed people. If you're looking for anything more substantial than that in a film, then this movie will be very disappointing for you.