The most striking thing about Audrey Diwan’s reinterpretation of Emmanuelle––the infamous novel-turned-softcore franchise from fabulously named director Just Jaeckin––is that the original dramatic beats largely remain intact. Perhaps this is why it received a critical drubbing at its San Sebastian premiere: those expecting the drastically different, radically feminist take on this material you’d assume would materialize courtesy of the filmmaker behind the Golden Lion-winning Happening would be disappointed by an unexpected faith towards its source. The way Diwan and co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski recontextualize this material is also out-of-step with recent cinephile backlash towards the lack of sexuality in contemporary cinema. As soon as the film opens with Emmanuelle (Noémie Merlant) joining the mile-high club, the tryst framed as dispassionately as its heroine’s blank expression, you can sense many viewers immediately checking out of a film which removes any ounce of titillation or sensuality from a narrative inherently defined by it. Like this iteration of Emmanuelle herself, Diwan’s film feels unmoored from sexual desire, laboriously going through the motions as it mimics many of the beats (and hook-ups) from material that was unabashed about its sensual nature.
Such a detached approach, depicting hedonism with the same amount of enthusiasm as you’d have for filing a tax return, is largely why I found Emmanuelle so beguiling. As a story of sexual discovery, it feels less aligned with its predecessors than it does something like Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, in which the very act of sexual desire is depicted as something unfathomable and alien. The dreamlike tone Diwan favors only heightens this further, pushing the expected hallmarks of a lowbrow erotic drama––from the stilted, oft-cheesy, over-sexualized dialogue to the exoticized travelogue setting––into the realm of the uncanny. It’s the rare tale of sexual discovery where it seems the film itself is, alongside its lead, trying to figure out the allure of what’s occurring onscreen.
In this iteration, Emmanuelle works for a multinational hotel conglomerate, flown around the world to inspect luxury hotels and fire managers who aren’t giving their guests the five-star treatment. This takes Emmanuelle to Hong Kong, where the brief flickers of sexual encounters we see during her stay (e.g. a threesome with two other guests) are depicted dispassionately, as if they’re as routine as brushing your teeth. It’s suggested that inspecting the finer details of a luxury few could ever afford has drained Emmanuelle of a similar enthusiasm in all corners of her life, her lack of pleasure in the bedroom just the tip of an iceberg.
It’s tempting to read this as a sly middle-finger towards film critics in general, a group so eager to pick apart faults that they no longer derive pleasure from the one thing which reliably seduced them. We’re in an age when just as many are vocal about being alienated by onscreen sex scenes as those demanded an end to this decidedly unerotic era in the movies; Diwan’s approach is to throw viewers immediately into a cold shower, only turning up the heat when they’ve acclimatized to the acts depicted in a clinical, calculated way.
For a long stretch, I confess, I found this take on Emmanuelle closer to an academic exercise than a conceit which justified a feature-length franchise reboot. But the coldly voyeuristic depictions of sex, affording the viewer the chance to be a fly on the wall with no risk of titillation, eventually renders the expected erotic beats newly surreal. By the time that a mysterious hotel guest (Will Sharpe) appears, it wouldn’t have been surprising if Diwan delivered a hacky reveal that he was merely a manifestation of Emmanuelle’s joy deprived subconscious; instead he’s an odd subversion of the softcore trope of the individual whose unrestrained sexual appetite makes them act as a “teacher” to the lead. Much like Rivers Cuomo, he’s tired of sex, discussing past encounters at length even though such matters haven’t concerned him for several years.
Randomly looming in the hotel lobby or the upstairs corridors––even though he’s the subject of intense speculation due to never staying overnight in his room––his narrative purpose is closer to that of a ghost of hookups past than a guiding hand, but his utilization is the only area where I couldn’t fully grasp the intentionality of Diwan and Zlotowski’s vision. There’s an inherent dry comedy to the ostensible male romantic lead of an erotic drama being a volcel, and his utilization as a voyeur in the climactic sex scene is ingenious, but he does more to suggest a figure reverse-engineered to shatter the dramatic expectations of this material rather than a necessary inclusion.
Yet, despite the limited dramatic scope inherent to an erotic drama about diminished sexual desire, I can’t pretend I didn’t find Diwan’s film oddly enchanting. I might be the only person on Earth who felt this was a step up from her acclaimed debut, which I found inert in a way that didn’t seem intentional. Here, that distancing makes certain moments––e.g. a candlelight musical number in the hotel restaurant, or mysterious nighttime treasure hunt through the back streets of Hong Kong––feel like they operate on pure dream logic, the entire movie suggesting a lucid recollection that’s struggling to recapture the euphoric high of its most memorable moment. It’s a bold way to recontextualize softcore’s most famous figure, making the artificiality of the genre more pronounced, but I suspect the majority of the few who do appreciate it will only have warmed to it for these subversive qualities. I was surprised to find Emmanuelle lingered in the memory a lot more than any story about the brief rush of desire should.
Emmanuelle opens in the U.K. this Friday, January 17 and is seeking U.S. distribution.