dougbrode Review of Emmanuelle II

Emmanuelle II (1975)

a young frenchwoman (Sylvia Kristel) experiments with her sensual side

[10/10 · 17 March 2006]

This may be the best softcore erotic movie ever made, and its a shame that more people didn't see it in America when initially released in 1975 at the height of the Sexual Revolution, before AIDS came along and took all the fun out of swinging. One reason why the film wasn't so popular is that just a few years earlier, the first Emmannuelle film, based on a supposedly true book by Ammanuelle Arson, was released with much hoopla - and seen by many people, most of whom did not particularly like it, myself included. There was a glossy look but a nasty edge to it all - the sex seemed joyless, owing to the awful approach of Just Jaecken. So people stayed away from the sequel, which is all about the joy of sex! And is absolutely sweet and seductive, lush and lovely - everything that the first Emmanuelle movie was supposed to be but wasn't. If this had been released first, everyone would have been delighted. This remains the most perfect film by which you can revisit (on screen) the truly joyous feel of sexual liberation in the mid-seventies, though steer away from its predecessor. Best sequence: Kristel's lovemaking, in an Asian brothel, with Laura Gemser, shortly to start a series of her own as . . . Black Emmanuelle!