That Obscure Object of Desire
Essay
That Obscure Object of Desire
By Phuong Le
On Sylvia Kristel’s iconic role.
Emmanuelle screens at Metrograph from September 23, as part of the series The Films of Sylvia Kristel.
It’s the image that launched a thousand school-boy fantasies. Sitting on a rattan peacock chair with one crossed leg resting on the knee of the other, the Utrecht-born actress Sylvia Kristel looks straight at the camera, a pearl necklace held between her fingers, brushing against her lips. In contrast to her ivory knee-high socks and boyishly cropped hair, which lend the tableau an air of virginal innocence, her frilly white cotton dress is pulled down to her waist. It is an erotic pose steeped in teasing ambiguity. Her breasts might be on display, yet Emmanuelle herself remains shrouded in mystery.
This provocative image was also the poster that, in June of 1974, stood perched upon the giant marquee of Paris’s now-defunct UGC Triomphe, where Emmanuelle—which turned Kristel into an overnight sensation and an international hot property—screened for a record-breaking 13 consecutive years. Passersby on the posh Champs-Élysées Avenue could look up and see Kristel peering down at them from above: an ethereal embodiment of sexual liberation; a film goddess of the time, and yet out of time.
The launch of Emmanuelle into cinemas like the UGC Triomphe was made possible, in part, by an unlikely figure: Georges Pompidou. Following the death of the Gaullist French President in 1974, the new government was eager to appear more modern and liberal. With the relaxing of censorship laws, Emmanuelle, which was previously all-out refused a certificate of release, could now enjoy mainstream success, counting some nine million visitors in France alone, and grossing more than $100M world-wide. In the wake of similarly explicit smash hits like Last Tango in Paris (1972), these softcore provocations were no longer delegated to the darkened halls of porno cinemas; they were, in fact, chic.
Passersby on the posh Champs-Élysées Avenue could look up and see Kristel peering down at them from above: an ethereal embodiment of sexual liberation; a film goddess of the time, and yet out of time
While the eponymous, clandestine 1959 source novel (later attributed to Thai-French writer Marayat Rollet-Andriane, who wrote under the nom de plume Emmanuelle Arsan) was notorious in underground circles for its pornographic content, the screen adaptation was “artistically legitimized” by the names among its principal crew. Scriptwriter Jean-Louis Richard, for instance, had penned a number of Truffaut films, including The Bride Wore Black (1968) and Day for Night (1973). Meanwhile, Emmanuelle was Just Jaeckin’s directorial debut, but he’d garnered fame already in the fashion world as a seasoned photographer of the stars. Jaeckin’s background in studio portraits was perhaps responsible for how the women in the movie are glamorously framed, with soft focus and lighting. Today, Emmanuelle has the reputation of being riddled with endless fornication, yet more often than not the women are seen at rest, stretched out pleasurably by a pool or lounging in bed under the tropical heat. Here, sumptuous sartorial details are as eroticized as the sex acts themselves. Lace, linen, and silk envelop this scintillating haven; a shot where a pair of jeans are ripped and re-fashioned into shorts even becomes a part of a seduction ritual.
Shot on location in Thailand, the story itself is pretty straightforward as a piece of orientalist travelog. Joining her diplomat husband Jean (Daniel Sarky) in the exotic “Far East,” Emmanuelle is encouraged to widen her sexual horizon. Like a perverse twist on Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the young woman is thrown into a freewheeling world ruled by violent impulses. (A few years later, Kristel would star in Claude Chabrol’s own subversive take on the classic tale). As Emmanuelle proceeds to sleep with the various men and women who stray onto her path, her sexual experimentation also opens up a space in which to question the supposed gratification of free love, and the possibility of female autonomy in a seemingly liberated world.
Above all, Kristel’s enigmatic presence stands at the center of the film’s otherworldliness. Against the sleazier aspects of the narrative, what has continued to draw me to her performance is the deliberate lack of psychological overtones. One can of course merely pass off this low-key affectation as a male fantasy of a subservient sex object who is willing to please. Nevertheless, Kristel’s characterization is far more complex and self-aware. Recalling in her 2006 memoir how her then-partner, the celebrated Belgian writer Hugo Claus, suggested she be more energetic during a sex scene, Kristel was adamant:
I will not move more, other actresses do that already, shrieking and fucking hysterically. Not me, not here. It will be my trademark, the proof of my difference [...]. I will remain detached, rather still, demonstrating my control. I will give myself but I won’t be there. They will never have me, will keep on wanting me, trawling for me, I am a big fish.
Indeed, her visage makes for an unknowable canvas; she reflects the desires of others rather than registering her own. Compared to similarly adored heroines in Jaeckin’s cinematic universe, such as Corinne Cléry (Story of O, 1975) or Tawny Kitaen (The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, 1984), or to contemporary sex symbols like Brigitte Bardot, Kristel possesses a more androgynous look. Writing towards the end of her life, she described herself as having “an artless face—my smooth, neutral mask for a gaping heart, and sometimes, in my hot, furtive eyes, fever and rage.” It is no wonder that she is at home in the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet (Playing with Fire, 1975) or Walerian Borowczyk (La marge, 1976), directors who favor intentionally flat performances that render actors impenetrable objects that constitute their hermetic reveries. Her assessment brings to mind critically revered actresses like Catherine Deneuve or Delphine Seyrig, whose placid acting styles, instead of opening a conduit to their characters’ inner psyches, frequently obscure.
In spite of Kristel’s multifaceted interpretation, Emmanuelle is seldom perceived in a nuanced fashion. While Japanese female audiences were reportedly enthused by the sex scenes in which Emmanuelle climbs atop her husband, in general feminist critics have rightly doubted the film’s portrayal of female sexual liberation. As a Southeast Asian woman myself, I have complicated feelings towards the frankly racist depiction of Thai people as an uncivilized population prone to rape and debauchery. And yet, time and time again, Kristel and her mesmerizing luminosity pull me back. When I first moved to Paris a couple of years ago, I was wandering the 6th arrondissement when the sight of Jaeckin’s art gallery stopped me dead in my tracks. Peering through the window, I saw a peacock chair just like the one made famous by Emmanuelle. Over the years, the image of Emmanuelle on her erotic throne has been recreated—many times less-than-willingly by Kristel herself, in the six sequels made up until 1993 —and heavily parodied, so much so that the object has now been nearly stripped of context, an idol floating in a simulacrum of commodified titillations, repackaged and resold. It might even pop up again in Audrey Diwan’s upcoming Emmanuelle adaptation starring Léa Seydoux, which will perhaps attempt to wrestle with the fable’s complicated legacy.
It is another sequence from Emmanuelle, though, which sticks in my mind, where the camera goes underwater, hypnotized by a nude Kristel’s graceful movements in a cerulean swimming pool. Her years of training as a dancer are beautifully showcased here. Her lithe figure spins and rolls in the water as if compelled by an uncontainable kinetic energy, her legs kicking against the rippling surface with marvelous force. The actress—and in effect the character—is in total control, and a sense of freedom emanates from such mastery of the body. Kristel might have been unhappily locked into her Emmanuelle image for most of her career, yet at this moment, she is, as she has written, a “big fish.” A slippery object of desire, she simultaneously beckons and elides our possessive gaze.
A Vietnamese film critic based in Paris, Phuong Le is a regular contributor to The Guardian, Sight & Sound, and other publications.
