This is my first time watching a film like this and I'm not sure what I was expecting--both more and less? The film seemed to be at most a sexual farce done in as a series of pretty tame soft porn vignettes loosely held together by a rather clichéd plot line--the greedy Jezebel taking down every man who crosses her path. If this is some kind of take regarding female sexual power I definitely have mixed feelings about the way it is portrayed: On the one hand it plays every man as leering pervs only out for the own sexual satisfaction--yet helpless idiots in the face of her (apparently very young)faux innocence. In that regard they pretty much deserve what they get--but on the other hand she has no care for the consequences of her own greed or the men she uses (as they use her). It is hard to feel much of anything for any of the characters and that is likely the film's biggest failure.
There is a strong undertone of pure hostility for both sexes in this film that is hard to miss and rather odd for a film outwardly celebrating sexual freedom. The strongest clue we get as to what is really going on is actually expressed by the main "wife" of the story when she disapprovingly says something along the line that our heroine is "one of those girls who actually enjoys...." you know. Apparently we are being lead to believe that every man falls at Nana's feet because they are totally sex-starved at home. So, ultimately everything that happens is the fault of wives who don't give their husbands what they need?
As far as the film itself: I have to say that it can be very hard to judge anyone's acting when viewing a dubbed film; flat voice dubbing can bring down even an excellent character portrayal. As a result I can't fairly rate the acting; the music was very distracting-sometimes seeming to celebrate the unconscionable. I have no idea if that was original or not to the film, so again cannot fairly judge. Dubbed films rarely do justice to the original. I had a problem with the main actress's supposed sexual allure given I didn't feel she was that attractive--those eyebrows! But perhaps they chose that look in order to make her look younger and more innocent--which would fit with the entire theme. Certainly other reviewers disagree with my personal assessment--and in fact some of histories most notorious femme fatales (Cleopatra, Violet Wodehouse of painter Sargent fame, etc) weren't physically beautiful; there was apparently some other intangible allure. Beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder! I had to laugh at some reviewers criticisms of the "au natural" look. I suspect at least SOME of those were "merkins", nothing natural about those at all--and at least unshaved 'pits were accurate for the time and place (and still are in some cultures!).
As far as historical accuracy, France was notorious for it's sexual freedom even at that time and yes, primitive moving pictures did exist. Lots of full frontal female nudity; sorry ladies, no male genitalia-though we do see suggestive silhouettes and otherwise nicely masculine (unshaved) nude males. The sex isn't graphic, despite the nudity and is mostly done to draw in the audience as voyeur, in much the same way as the rest of the cast when they're around. The whole film is voyeuristic. As a story though, pretty tame. It would have helped a great deal if there had been at least ONE character we could have identified with and cared about.
