Emanuela (1974)

Emanuela: Directed by Just Jaeckin. With Alain Cuny, Sylvia Kristel, Marika Green, Daniel Sarky. The wife of a French diplomat in Bangkok, Emmanuelle embarks on a voyage of sexual discovery.

“The biggest cinema surprise hit of 1975, based on a book by Emmanuelle Arsan, made Dutch model Sylvia Kristel a famous actress. The first thing youu0026#39;ll notice is that over 30 years later, the fascination with the exotic is still strong. It was worth going to Thailand and present the real thing instead of shooting u0026quot;Asianu0026quot; scenes in a park in Spain or Italy like many other European film crews did at the time. And it surely is one of the very few erotic films where you have to pay attention to the dialogs. It was important to explain the bizarre idea of u0026quot;freedomu0026quot; which the scandalous novel had introduced – arguably a two-edged sword. It is said that dependency is humiliating, but arenu0026#39;t scenes like when Emmanuelle is given as a u0026quot;prizeu0026quot; to the Thai boxer even more humiliating? Easy to see why the movie stirred up discussions – which made even more people want to watch it. The ambiguity of this u0026quot;freedomu0026quot; in u0026quot;Emmanuelleu0026quot; thus was used for marketing. In her autobiography u0026quot;Undressing Emmanuelleu0026quot;, Kristel recalls one scene with real horror: near the end, when she is raped by the opium smoker. The young man didnu0026#39;t understand a word of what she or the director said, so he just grabbed her. Sylviau0026#39;s disgust is visible, and if the sequels hadnu0026#39;t been softer, she probably wouldnu0026#39;t have made them. The first Emmanuelle film still was experimenting with both visual style and a provocative attitude; it may have created a certain formula even though it didnu0026#39;t completely obey its rules, since it was rather the more gentle and glossy second Emmanuelle film which perfected the formula. I voted 7/8/6/4/6/7 for the six cinema films of the series.”