To mark the 50th anniversary of the erotic French film that made soft porn mainstream cinema, it's had a 21st Century reboot – but will it match the success of the original? A new version of Emmanuelle, this time in English and starring France's Noémie Merlant, has just been released in France. This Emmanuelle, directed by Audrey Diwan, a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner for her powerful abortion drama Happening, explores female sexuality, 2024-style. If Emmanuelle's sexual adventures need re-telling, that might be because the 1974 original seems so dated now.
Directed by Frenchman Just Jaeckin and starring Dutch actor Sylvia Kristel as Emmanuelle, the film (based on a 1967 novel of the same name) follows the 19-year-old wife of a French diplomat on a visit to Thailand. All the residents, whether Thai or expat, seem ready for sex at any time. Shot in soft, dream-like focus, Emmanuelle has encounters with men and women in a variety of locations, including joining the mile-high club, although not all these experiences are consensual.
She is raped in an opium den but then swiftly goes on to have sex with a man who has "won" her during a fight. "I can't say it's a brilliant film, really," Sylvia Kristel would say of it, in an interview with The Telegraph in 2007 . Many critics at the time agreed with her, but the movie was a box-office sensation, selling nearly nine million tickets in France alone, although it was initially banned until a new government was elected in .