Like with the first Emmanuelle movie, I feel ambiguous about L'anti-vierge. It indubitably has its strong points: Sylvia Kristel is finally given her due platform -- and is absolutely ravishing; and there are several epochal sex scenes to behold. I mean, that sextuple interracial soapy full-body massage -- wow. Sure looks good!
But part two of the series also adopts many of the flaws of the first instalment. First of, this entire free love, everyone with everyone, you don't know a person if you haven't shagged them, nothing is bad if it feels good, if you don't want your partner shagging every second person he or she meets then you're a possessionist reactionary etc. -ideology puts me off. Not only is it not my bag, I also think it's as dated as dated as the Pope's stand on dildos.
Then the airbrained pseudo-philosophical talk scenes that go with it -- they make me feel like I'm stuck in a seminar on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by an asthmatic tutor with a speech disorder on a sweltering hot Saturday afternoon in Siberia, when I really just wanted to see some red-hot porn. Next, the softcore restrictions are rather awkward, and really fly in the face of the series' freewheeling premise, because when, after a lot of heady talk, the swingers finally have a go at plunging to new depths of depravity, the camera coyly pans to a substitute shot of someone fluttering they eyelids or biting their lips. And several scenes just felt abortive.
So overall, Emmanuelle II -- definitely a few outstanding scenes, but sadly not a good movie overall. And, on balance, not any better than part one either.
But part two of the series also adopts many of the flaws of the first instalment. First of, this entire free love, everyone with everyone, you don't know a person if you haven't shagged them, nothing is bad if it feels good, if you don't want your partner shagging every second person he or she meets then you're a possessionist reactionary etc. -ideology puts me off. Not only is it not my bag, I also think it's as dated as dated as the Pope's stand on dildos.
Then the airbrained pseudo-philosophical talk scenes that go with it -- they make me feel like I'm stuck in a seminar on Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by an asthmatic tutor with a speech disorder on a sweltering hot Saturday afternoon in Siberia, when I really just wanted to see some red-hot porn. Next, the softcore restrictions are rather awkward, and really fly in the face of the series' freewheeling premise, because when, after a lot of heady talk, the swingers finally have a go at plunging to new depths of depravity, the camera coyly pans to a substitute shot of someone fluttering they eyelids or biting their lips. And several scenes just felt abortive.
So overall, Emmanuelle II -- definitely a few outstanding scenes, but sadly not a good movie overall. And, on balance, not any better than part one either.