It’s a surprise to find out that director Audrey Diwan had never seen the original Emmanuelle — a gauzy soft-porn feature that got le tout France hot and bothered when it was allowed to be shown in normal cinemas in 1974 — before she was approached to do this remake, which opens the San Sebastian Film Festival in Competition. In its day, Emmanuelle spawned a string of sequels, each reputedly worse than its predecessors, while star Sylvia Kristel became so immediately famous for taking off her clothes that the expectation blighted her entire career. It also made a huge amount of money.
But what’s most surprising about the fact that Diwan — who made The Happening , which won the Golden Lion in Venice two years ago — had not seen Just Jaeckin’s then-so-scandalous film is that this one seems to be constructed as an answer to it. Both are based on Emmanuelle Arsan’s pseudonymous 1967 novel, structured in the same way. Scene for scene, character for character, Diwan attempts to bang the original’s balls back across the net.
Once again, the story begins with the seductively underdressed Emmanuelle (Noémie Merlant) in a plane, giving a fellow business-class passenger the eye and then drifting to the cabin toilet, expecting him to follow her. He does. It’s almost an exact repeat of the original.
But then she turns to face the mirror, whereupon we see her temptress’ moue fade into 50 shades of dull disappointment. This certainly does put a new spin on things. Kr.