EMMANUELLE (1974)
& EMMANUELLE 2 (1977)
Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Duration: 94 Minutes/91 Minutes
Audio: French, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)/(2.35:1)
Director: Just Jaeckin/Francis Giacobetti
Cast: Sylvia Kristel, Alain Cuny, Marika Green, Daniel Sarky, Christine Boisson / Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Frédéric Lagache, Catherine Rivet, Caroline Laurence, Henry Czarniak, Tom Clark, Laura Gemser
The seminal softcore classic Emmanuelle (1974) is adapted from Emmanuelle Arsan's famously erotic-novel and stars the fresh-faced and freckled ginger Sylvia Kristel (Because Of The Cats) as the titular wife of an older French diplomat Jean (Daniel Sarky), who works at the French Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Arriving in Bangkok from Paris she mingles with the other diplomats bored and promiscuous wives who are bemused at her monogamous views, she is soon befriended by a teenage girl named Marie-Ange (Christine Boisson, Antonioni's Identification of a Woman) who comes to visit her at her home, all the while casually a sucking on a lollipop and masturbating to a picture of Paul Newman in a magazine while they share stories of promiscuous sexual encounters, thus setting the tone for this softcore sexual adventure. The films plays out in a menagerie of softcore, soft-focus sex fantasies with Emmanuelle eventually taking on several new lovers, including a blond archaeologist Bee (Marika Green), and the wife of another diplomat named Ariane (Jeanne Colletin) who also gives Emmanuelle's husband a taste too.
Then we have an older man named Mario (Alain Cuny, La Dolce Vita) whose sexual prowess is canonized by both Maria-Ange ans Ariane, but whom Emmanuelle has little interest in at first, but she's being steered in that direction.
The film is basically a series of sexual vignettes, it's all very softcore-lite in a nipple-nibbling sort of way that seems tame today, but might have been an erection-making shocker when this made the rounds in the theater in the 70's (or on late night cable where a lot of us caught it!) - and it was distributed by Columbia Pictures!
Directed by Just Jaeckin (The Story of O) the film has a gauzy look about it, it feels dreamy and seems to try to rise above it's smuttiness with some artistic leanings, and it does have a certain classy veneer about it with some great looking locations in Thailand - but it's a movie about a woman having sex with multiple partners, make no mistake about it.
The locations and female stars are attractive to watch, and while some of the eroticism is decidedly underplayed
and happens off-screen it still manages to squeeze in a bizarre shocker - the image of a Thai stripper smoking a cigarette with her vagina always manages to catch me off guard, it's sort of gross but mesmerizing in a strange stomach-churning way, and you know that woman must have died years ago of cervical cancer cause that's just not right!
A few other issues I have with the film is that Emmanuelle sets out on this journey, ostensibly to become a better lover for her husband's pleasure (with his consent even), but it looses it's way at the end, not that this thing was a steadfast journey by any means, but the movie comes to a close with Emmanuelle out on the town with infamous old-lover Marco, who thus far has been confirmed to be an amazing lover, but he doesn't touch her, though he does take her to an opium den where she's gang-raped, then taken to an underground fight club where she is the sexual trophy of the winner, it's a strange ending that comes abruptly and doesn't wrap anything up, but I guess no one's watching an Emmanuelle movie looking for proper story, just some softcore fun with plenty of nude women. To that end I will say that Sylvia Kristel is not hard to watch, she was a gorgeous woman and looks great, I can see why this film caught on in the 70's, it's just not one of the better erotic films of that era in my opinion.
In the sequel Emmanuelle (Krystel, Frank & Eva) arrives in Hong Kong via ship to join her husband, now played by Umberto Orsini (Violent City, again with the understanding that sleeping around is A-OK as long as their are no romantic entanglement to impede their own relationship. Arriving she discovers her husband has been having relations of a sexual nature with a gorgeous young woman named Laura (Florence Lafuma), spurring her to pursue a handsome American pilot/art smuggler named Christopher (Frédéric Lagache), as well as both pursuing Laura's sexy but virginal step-daughter Anna-Maria (Catherine Rivet)!
The sequel is even more lavish a production than the first film, an erotic travelogue or erotic adventure with Emmanuelle failing to bed the American pilot, he being truly puzzled by her sexual politics. However, she manages to get some via Anna-Maria's dance instructor, a tattooed polo player and various men and women at day spas, including an interesting masturbation scene while she's having acupuncture applied to her body, and posing as a whore at a gentleman's club - this girl gets around!
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The film is artfully shot by cinematographer
Robert Fraisse (Ronin) with gorgeous tracking shots that soak in the exotic scenery, of both the environmental and physical variety, sweeping across nude flesh in the throws of ecstasy. The film opens on a weird seduction scene, a woman on the ship travelling to Hong Kong tells Emmanuelle of being raped by three women at her boarding school when she was younger, thereby initiating a lesbian love scene, it's a strange come on, but it works.
Be on the lookout here for Laura Gemser (Violence n a Women's Prison) who would go onto star in the Black Emmanuelle series of films, as a horny massage parlor girl, it's all hot stuff, and
Audio/Video: Emmanuelle (1974) and Emmanuelle 2 (1977) arrive on a single-disc region-FREE Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment in anamorphic widescreen, the first film is framed in 1.66:1 while the second film is 2.35:1. The source for both look clean with only some white speckling and very minor print damage, otherwise these look great. The first film is quite an improvement from Umbrella's DVD release just last year, grain is well managed, skin tones look natural, there's some modest depth to the image, and fine detail is abundant. The sequel is a bit softer to my eyes, the grain looks a tiny but filtered, the contrast is off in a few scenes, and the fine detail is not as prominent, but both look good considering these are most likely the same dated masters provided by Studio Canal for release in other territories in the aughts.
Audio on both films comes by way of original French via DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo or an English dub, with optional English subtitles. The French has a more organic delivery to it, the English sounds a bit thin by comparison. The score from the late Pierre Bachelet on the first film sounds great, sometimes it's jazzy with some minor freak-outs, at times bringing to mind the early Argento scores from pro-rockers Goblin minus the darkness. The second film has a score from composer Francis Lai (Dog Day) which sounds terrific.
Sadly, this release is bare bones, with only a start-up menu with the option to choose which movie and which audio set-up. The single-disc release comes housed in an oversized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, each featuring the same key art with one side offering the unsightly Aussie rating classification, the other without, the Blu-ray disc features the same key art without the title logo covering Kristel's breasts.
Emmanuelle (1974) is a pretty damn classy erotic film, it handles the sexuality with a feminine sensuality that never goes vulgar, a softcore film that captured the imagination of horny movie goers in the porno-chic 70's and went on to earn lots of money. So much so that it went on to inspire a few legit sequels (and a few not so legit), including Emmanuel 2 (1977) which is included on this release, also starring the seductive Sylvia Kristel. In my opinion it's a sequel that improves upon the first film, amping up the sultry eroticism with even artier cinematography and more exotic locations, a vintage slice of erotic adventure that I strongly encourage any kinky cinema lover to seek it out, this double-feature comes highly recommended.
