Emmanuelle’s Love – L’amour d’Emmanuelle (1993)

Directed by: Francis Leroi | 89 minutes | drama, comedy, adventure, romance, fantasy | Actors: Marcella Walerstein, George Lazenby, Sylvia Kristel, Joel Bui, Jay Hausman, Pham Duc-Tu, Daniel Hung Meas, Vibbe Haugaard, Tony Senegal, Frédéric Fratini, Sénégal Fratini, Natala Sevenants, Jean-Pierre de Varenne

In ‘Emmanuelle’s Love’, the well-known ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ ex-Bond George Lazenby hears from old Emmanuelle (Kristel) how, when she was young and tight and looked like Marcella Walerstein, she was once an old friend from the fire had to help. In her case, that almost always means a woman who needs a sexual push. Emmanuelle has been given a handy potion in Tibet with which she can become any woman she wants, or enter the body of any woman. In the first third of ‘Love’, this means she transforms into Niki, her friend in Hong Kong, while the original is also circulating. Niki is in love with her boss Nino, but is too shy and clumsy to seduce him. Emmanuelle knows her stuff, though, so just a drop of her special medicine and: Niki is ready, uh… Emmanuelle.

This whole mistaken identity section could have come from the letter-to-letter section of a naked magazine like Playboy, in which case it would be real twins. However, where in those kinds of stories the build-up could still be stimulating, in this story it completely dies because of the disfigured acting, both in terms of movements and dialogue. The characters are simply too moronic, especially the actress who plays Niki, to captivate, and more importantly, excite. When Emmanuelle enters Niki’s room, we can already see the beautiful naked body of the latter, as she steps straight out of the shower, without covering herself (properly) – supposedly justified by the absent-mindedness of the character – but we have to viewer for quite a long time. The real action only takes place after about half an hour, when Nino finds the doppelganger in the bathroom and then – go ahead – decides to participate in a threesome. This scene is tastefully filmed, with the shapes of the ladies lying next to each other sometimes appearing like landscapes. But luckily the sparks fly off here as well. It’s about time.

The next segment is completely unrelated to this, apart from the explanation that we are here on our honeymoon in India with Niki and Nino and a group of friends. They travel by train, which is called “The Palace on Wheels”. However, this is irrelevant. The point is that train compartments and the group of friends lend themselves to some fresh sexual episodes. Central is the relationship between the (almost) mutilated in a car accident, and very rich, Sara Brooks and the opportunistic bastard Josh Harris. The couple argues constantly, stemming from his disdain for Sara and her appearance. But this is not a sexual turn-off for her. Soon after an argument in the compartment, she lies naked on her stomach with a smile to let him perform his sex act, which is amusingly interspersed with images of the lighting up of the train, and runs in the same rhythm as this steam train. When he quickly leaves the compartment afterwards, she suddenly understands how she felt and calls after him quasi-theatrically: “You bastard!” and throws the water from her glass against the mirror, which splashes off with an embarrassing splash. Drama at its best! Emmanuelle’s function here is to put the later cheating man on his number. She transforms Sara into another woman, who then surreptitiously steals his money from him. The viewer does taste some satisfaction when Josh has just transferred his money over the phone and suddenly recognizes Sara in the strange woman by a familiar behavior (she sucks her thumb during sex), while she, very symbolically, is pleasuring herself. Another interesting scene in this segment occurs when a hypnotist stimulates a naked woman in his compartment to great heights by twisting and constricting her like a snake charmer with mere hand movements. The occasional source of entertainment is the dialogue, both in its absurdity and its contrivance. We learn that “a gigolo doesn’t jump off a moving train”, and we get a nice description of the atmosphere from Emmanuelle when she says: “The atmosphere is thick, and tempers fly”. Shakespeare is nothing to it.

Since only an hour has passed after this section, which is very short for a feature film, there is still a way to add some sex scenes. So in the third part, years later, Emmanuelle visits Niki in San Francisco to help her with her declining marriage and sex life. Strangely enough, she chooses this as a solution to change herself into the woman with whom Nino is cheating. It is interesting that she listens to her own feelings of lust here and does not do the right thing, although this does mean that Niki makes a suicide attempt. And it’s a shame that at the end of the film, Lazenby has to give a preposterous explanation about the actual correctness of Emmanuelle’s actions – because everything will be all right, of course. The sex scenes in this segment are varyingly effective. In any case, it is nice that Walerstein herself now also undresses, although the way in which she makes love from a distance with her other body seems slightly comical.

‘Emmanuelle’s Love’ is a messy whole with a boring first half hour and, as usual, abominable acting, which fortunately does not have to get boring for too long thanks to a handful of successful sex scenes and some unintentionally comic moments.