Verdict
Summary
Severin has just released an 11-disc definitive set of these first four Emmanuelle movies, with a truckload of bonus features, crystal clear transfers, soundtrack CDs, and a hard shell box that comes with a thick booklet outlining the films and their importance to the genre they represent. I spent some time going through some of the features, which also include the archival material from the Anchor Bay / Blue Underground DVD set from close to 20 years ago, and all of that stuff was worth looking through because of the fact that it included on-camera interviews with Kristel and Just Jaeckin, and others, which is great because they’re gone now. It would take literally hours upon hours to work your way through it all, but for the ardent fans, this is the zenith set of all sets. Let’s hope that Severin releases another volume of Emmanuelle films that takes us all the way through the 1980s, as Kristel appeared as Emmanuelle eight more times in her career, and let’s not forget Emmanuelle 5 with Monique Gabrielle!
I, Emmanuelle (1969) Plot:
A woman spirals into self-destruction and depression, seeking validation and feeling from sex with random men.
Review:
Emmanuelle (Erika Blanc) is an attractive, cosmopolitan woman working in the news industry when a close (perhaps too close) female friend of hers commits suicide, sending her into a season of self-doubt, depression, and perhaps mental illness. She wanders around the city in a funk, imagining things that aren’t happening (such as riots, public nudity, and reenactments of war), and she all but deposits herself at the laps of men she comes across – some of which she knows in passing, some of which are complete strangers – for sex in the hopes that the act itself will somehow ignite a spark of life back into her soul. From an author she has a passing fad relationship with, to a man who works at a female undergarment store, and then to a cross-dressing motorcycle punk, and then finally to a professor (played by Adolfo Celi from Thunderball) who loves her, Emmanuelle is adrift in a world that will have her carnally, but her soul remains out of reach … even to her.
The first of what would become a great many in-name-only Emmanuelle films that would become immensely popular thanks to the next official film, starring Sylvia Kristel, I, Emmanuelle (or A Man for Emmanuelle) is an odd art house, almost experimental film with surreal touches (check out the moments where Emmanuelle sees puppets in a toy shop, and then later she imagines a bunch of soldiers with strings attached to their limbs while in a restaurant), and while it has plenty of sex, the film never veers too far into exploitation or even overt sex movie territory, keeping the nudity rather discreet and saving it for moments where it matters. Blanc is a pretty lady here, but she hides her emotion, never emoting or pouting, but rather presenting her character as a woman completely lost in numbness and deep sadness. Her sexual encounters are plentiful, but mostly meaningless, and the film does its best to try to get us in her headspace … which most of the time feels empty. Director Cesare Canevari’s take on this material (which is based on a book) is fascinatingly aloof and at times rather frustrating because we never really know where to stand with Emmanuelle herself.
Emmanuelle (1974) Plot:
The beautiful young wife of a diplomat spends her time in Bangkok exploring her sexuality.
Review:
A French diplomat (Daniel Sarky) brings his wife Emmanuelle (Dutch Sylvia Kristel in a career-defining performance) with him to Bangkok, assuring her that she will love it. Already exploring her sexuality as a nude model, Emmanuelle is ripe for the allure and danger that Bangkok offers. She tries to join the clique of diplomatic wives and girlfriends who all lounge around nude by swimming pools, lazily discussing their sex lives, and suspecting that her husband is already having multiple affairs, Emmanuelle is intrigued by the possibilities that she too can set a course for a series of affairs. Because it doesn’t count (right?) if she were to have an affair with another woman, she tries that out for size and enjoys it so much that she takes multiple female lovers, but then allows herself to be propositioned (sometimes silently, without even a single word exchanged) by male strangers. She has sex with such a stranger on an airplane (the film’s hottest scene, easily), and then later she is taken on a tour of the seedier side of Bangkok, led by an older, seasoned man named Mario (Alain Cuny) who takes her to an opium den where she tries opium for the first time, but then Mario allows her to be raped by two men, which gives her a feeling of violation for the first time as well. Her final stage of letting go of all her inhibitions comes when Mario takes her to an underground fight match, where he offers her (without her consent, but it turns her on anyway) to the victor of the match, but she must allow the experience to be enjoyed by everyone else in the room as well. Emmanuelle lives to tell the tale.
Not the first of its type, but certainly the one that all the others that came after aspired to be, Emmanuelle is pretty much the ultimate erotic exploitation film, with an appeal factor that reached women just as much as it did men, if not more for women with its ultra feminist point of view. It’s very erotic and pushes the envelope to the point that it was rated X upon release, and it hasn’t really lost its potency or its eroticism, despite the years. Kristel is adorably cute in the movie, while some of the couplings in the movie require her to “endure” the encounter more than enjoy it, and she is surrounded by gorgeous scenery and an endless array of ’70s style and couture fashion. This one really set the bar very high for all the imitators to follow for many years to come, and it’s easy to see why. It’s well directed by Just Jaeckin, and nicely scored by Pierre Bachelet.
Emmanuelle 2 (1975) Plot:
A married woman has sexual escapades in Hong Kong.
Review:
After two long months of not seeing her diplomat husband Jean (Umberto Orsini), Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel) books passage on a ship to Hong Kong Where her husband is working and living. When she arrives in Hong Kong, she isn’t surprised (or bothered) at all to discover that her husband has been having affairs and, in fact, the whole thing turns her on to some degree. Jean is a very open-minded worldly man who simply loves women and allows – and even encourages – Emmanuelle to have casual affairs and sexual encounters of her own. Staying with Jean and Emmanuelle in their beautiful home is a handsome young pilot named Christopher (Frederic Lagache) who isn’t shy at all about his attraction to Emmanuelle, and when Jean is out working, he escorts her to some tourist spots in Hong Kong, including an acupuncture doctor who is known for using needles to make women orgasm. While on her own, she reconnects with a pretty blonde dancer she met while on the ship over, and the young lady immediately becomes part of hers and Jean’s trove of collectable girls for sexual trysts. On one such occasion, the three of them visit a massage parlor where they each receive sensual nude massages from a trio of Asian beauties (including Laura Gemser in the first of her many Emmanuelle movie appearances).
Plotless in every regard, but framed around Kristel-as-Emmanuelle as a sort of postcard-esque erotic adventure where sex literally is the whole point, Emmanuelle 2 has gorgeous cinematography and lighting, and director Francis Giacobetti – who was a fashion photographer – concentrated solely on framing the many erotic scenes, but because the film has no real story to speak of, the movie ends up feeling like a magazine spread of Playboy or Penthouse rather than a scripted film. Giacobetti never directed another movie, and one can see why, but you can’t mreally complain about it because the film looks luscious and sensuous with soft lighting and beautiful women. It’s just a shame that it completely lacks a story, and it ends literally after a ménage-a-trois, which ultimately leaves the viewer empty. Francis Lai did the score.
Goodbye, Emmanuelle (1977) Plot:
A married woman with a very open marriage falls into lust and love with a man who doesn’t reciprocate her feelings.
Review:
Now relocated to the Seychelles Islands, diplomat Jean (Uberto Orsini) and his wife Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel) loaf around all day, every day, it seems, with not much to do but make love and eat gourmet meals at beachside cafes. Jean sleeps around a lot with locals and various young beauties who float around his periphery, and he encourages Emmanuelle to explore her carnal side as well. To say that they have an open marriage is the understatement of the year, and Emmanuelle (no longer an aspiring model like she was in the first movie) sets her eyes to the horizon and sees a man on a fishing boat, filming the coastline. The man is Gregory (Jean-Pierre Bouvier), a filmmaker looking to shoot a movie on the islands, and because Jean is the local diplomat with all the connections, he visits him to get some permits. When Emmanuelle realizes that she’s somehow gotten her quarry to come to her, she immediately begins a sexual affair with him, letting him take her out into the exotic local spots where they’ll have privacy. She immediately falls hard into lust and love with him, but he holds her at arm’s length, and in one instance, he hands her cash after they make love, as if she’s a hooker, which sets her heart spinning in offence. But she can’t shake him, and when her husband Jean realizes that he’s losing her – heart, body, and soul – to this man who doesn’t even want her, Jean becomes incensed and his anger pushes Emmanuelle away, possibly forever.
With a little more plot and conflict than the previous film, Goodbye, Emmanuelle, to me, is a better movie than Part 2, with more attractive locations, sexier women, and a more alluring aspect to Emmanuelle’s inner workings. Kristel has a little more to work with here rather than just being a pretty prop, and while the movie is less “erotic,” it’s also more sensual and sexier than the earlier entry, if only because Emmanuelle herself finds that she’s not as desirable as she was before, which gives the movie a little more complexity. Director Francois Leterrier (father to filmmaker Louis Leterrier) did a solid job with this slightly more intellectual entry in perhaps the most erotic film series of all time.
Severin has just released an 11-disc definitive set of these first four Emmanuelle movies, with a truckload of bonus features, crystal clear transfers, soundtrack CDs, and a hard shell box that comes with a thick booklet outlining the films and their importance to the genre they represent. I spent some time going through some of the features, which also include the archival material from the Anchor Bay / Blue Underground DVD set from close to 20 years ago, and all of that stuff was worth looking through because of the fact that it included on-camera interviews with Kristel and Just Jaeckin, and others, which is great because they’re gone now. It would take literally hours upon hours to work your way through it all, but for the ardent fans, this is the zenith set of all sets. Let’s hope that Severin releases another volume of Emmanuelle films that takes us all the way through the 1980s, as Kristel appeared as Emmanuelle eight more times in her career, and let’s not forget Emmanuelle 5 with Monique Gabrielle!
Bonus Materials
- Audio Commentary For EMMANUELLE With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell
- A Slightly Scandalous Character – Interview With Actress Marika Green
- Producing EMMANUELLE – Interview With Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
- Filming EMMANUELLE – Interview With Camera Operator Robert Fraisse
- Fabric & Fantasy: Costume As Character Development – Video Essay By Fashion And Costume Historian Elissa Rose
- The Channel – Actress Liane Curtis On Her Mother, Dubbing Artist Paulette Rubinstein
- Interview With Marayat Rollet-Andriane (aka Emmanuelle Arsan) On The Set Of THE SAND PEBBLES (1966)
- The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 1 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel, Director Just Jaeckin And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
- French EMMANUELLE Trailer
- U.S. EMMANUELLE Trailer
- Signed, Emmanuelle Arsan – Interview With Camille Moreau, Author Of Emmanuelle Arsan: Biography Of A Pseudonym
- Interview With Director Just Jaeckin For FILMO TV
- A HARD LOOK (2000) – TV Documentary By Filmmaker Alex Cox
- Emmanuelle In Ontario – Video Essay On The Canadian Censorship Battle By Journalist Eric Veillette
- Audio Commentary For EMMANUELLE 2 With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell And Filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat
- Audio Interview With Director Francis Giacobetti
- Producing EMMANUELLE 2 – Interview With Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
- Filming EMMANUELLE 2 – Interview With Cinematographer Robert Fraisse
- Mondo Emmanuelle – Ethnography And Softcore With Dr. Jennifer Moorman, Assistant Professor Of Communication And Media Studies
- Filming Report For Swiss TV
- The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 2 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
- International EMMANUELLE 2 Trailer
- U.S. EMMANUELLE 2 Trailer
- EMMANUELLE 2 Radio Spots
- Audio Commentary For GOODBYE EMMANUELLE With Film Writer/Professor Of Modern Culture And Media Dr. Veronica Fitzpatrick
- Beyond Emmanuelle: Sylvia Kristel’s Life And Career – Interviews With Jeremy Richey, Author Of Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle To Chabrol, And Leila Wimmer, Senior Lecturer In Film Studies At London Metropolitan University
- Audio Erotica – The Music Of The Emmanuelle Series With Soundtrack Journalist Daniel Schweiger
- The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 3 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
- International GOODBYE EMMANUELLE Trailer
- U.S. GOODBYE EMMANUELLE Trailer
- GOODBYE EMMANUELLE Radio Spots
- Introduction To I, EMMANUELLE By Kier-La Janisse, Author Of House Of Psychotic Women
- Audio Commentary For I, EMMANUELLE With Film Historian Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- A Director À La Française – Interview With Director Cesare Canevari
- Memoirs Of Emmanuelle – Interview With Actress Erika Blanc
- A Man For Emmanuelle – Interview With Actor Sandro Pizzochero
- Protagonist And Subject – Video Essay By Filmmaker Carl Elsaesser
- Concerning Emmanuelle – Archival Interview With Cesare Canevari
- I, EMMANUELLE Trailer
