Emanuela 2.Teil – Garten der Liebe (1975)

Emanuela 2.Teil – Garten der Liebe: Directed by Francis Giacobetti. With Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Frédéric Lagache, Catherine Rivet. After two months of separation, Emmanuelle must find her husband Jean in Hong Kong. She goes there by boat. Once in Thailand, she finds her husband and meets Christopher, a mysterious airplane pilot. At a dinner, she also meets Laura, Jean’s mistress and her troubling stepdaughter Anna Maria. She proceeds to have several extramarital affairs — with Jean’s knowledge, of course.

“As a soft core feature, Emmanuelle 2 stands out as one of the very best of itu0026#39;s kind. Artfully rendered, beautifully photographed love/sex scenes, that really pushed the limits on just how far a film could go. This is a sequel to one of the most successful erotic movies of all time. I can report, in all honesty that is is a rare instance where a sequel is better than the original. While the first u0026quot;Emmanuelleu0026quot;, filmed by Just Jaeckin, is somehow dark, and murky, Emmanuelle 2 is bright, and filled with life, and with genuine eroticism. Obviously this feature had a much larger budget than itu0026#39;s predecessor, and it shows. The viewer was introduced to the infamous u0026quot;Emmanuelleu0026quot; character in 1974. She was a shy, quiet girl of 19, married to an older man, who had very different views of sex. In that film we witnessed the beginning of her sexual awakening. In this sequel we see Emmanuelle developed into an incredibly strong, liberated woman, who goes about her sexual conquests like a drunken sailor! Sylvia Kristel sets the screen on fire with her unique brand of sexuality, which i canu0026#39;t quite describe. The many erotic scenes feature the most sumptuously filmed situations imaginable, and always set in the most exotic of locales. And as explicit as it is, it never crosses the line between good taste and sleaze for a second. What constantly surprised me about Emmanuelle 2 is just how well made it is. Every second of it looks like a very polished, big budget film. It was not expected, because the first Emmanuelle simply did not possess this level of quality. Best of all, while Emmanuelle 1 seems horribly dated today, thanks mostly to the 1970u0026#39;s philosophizing of the Mario character, along with the tacky theme song, the second one has dated beautifully, thanks to the truly elegant and timeless fashion choices for Kristel and the rest of the cast, and also to the gorgeous soundtrack by celebrated composer Francis Lai. If you have an interest in erotic films, i recommend you hunt this one down. I have the DVD from the Netherlands, which I believe is the most uncut version available. I also recommend seeing the original first; it is not as good as this one, however it is still a very good, and important film, as that is the one that started it all. Plus it is nice to see a character of erotic films actually develop, and change throughout a series. I cannot however recommend most of the others in the series, (with the exception of the very rare u0026quot;Yellow Emanuelleu0026quot; and a couple Laura Gemser films) as they range from bad to ridiculous. This stuff is worlds better than much of the ugly, corporate crap that comes out of Hollywood these days.”