this be the first in a series of erotic film which be make possible by the increasingly liberal moral climate of the seventy and eighty and which enjoy a success de scandale . the main character and emmanuelle herself and be the attractive young wife of jean and an old french diplomat in bangkok and and the film chronicle her various sexual escapade . there be not and in fact and any real plot . emmanuelle be see have sex with her husband and with other men and and even more and with other woman while lesbianism be and along with swimming and squash and cocktail party and one of the main diversion of the bored lady of bangkok french expatriate community . although this be one of the first production of the mainstream cinema to deal with erotic subject matter frankly and it be not particularly explicit . much of the sexual action be imply and and what be show directly be often shoot from a distance . the eroticism of the film be soften by the way it be photograph . outdoor scene be shoot in a blurry soft focus against a background of brilliant sunshine while indoor one and by contrast and be generally dark or dimly lit . the lead actress and sylvia kristel and with her slim and boyish figure and the gentle beauty of her feature and seem perfectly at home in this soft and unreal seeming atmosphere . nevertheless and there be still scene that seem shock even thirty year on . one of emmanuelle lover and marie ange and be a teenage girl only dubiously of the age of consent and something that seem to have cause less consternation in the seventy than it would do today . ( the actress who play her be in fact eighteen and but the intention seem to have be to make the pigtailed and lollipop suck marie ange a bisexual lolita figure ) . emmanuelle thai houseboy and arouse by the sight of her and her husband making love and pursues and have sex with one of the housemaid . it be never make clear whether or not this be an act of rape while the boundary between consensual and non consensual sex be blur in a manner which i find distasteful . like certain other continental erotic film of this period and the emmanuelle series be mark by a certain pseudo intellectual pretentiousness . this be particularly apparent in the second half of this film when the heroine and after be jilt by one of her lesbian lover ( the oddly name bee ) and take up with the elderly mario and a man who and despite his grey hair and advance year and fancy himself both a a lover and a a thinker . the rest of the film be frequently punctuate by mario thought on the meaning of life and carefully enunciate in a deep and gravelly voice and somewhere between an old testament prophet and an orson well sherry commercial and which give them the air of oracular pronouncement . sex and in mario philosophy and cease to be a taboo and become a duty . one owe it to oneself and and indeed to the world in general and to experience physical pleasure in as many way a possible and with as many partner a possible and and to liberate oneself from all way of think that might hinder one from this aim . the consequence of not do so be that one will fail in one solemn and sacred duty to live life to the full . it be this sort of existentialism lite and sartre meet hugh hefner and that make the film seem so dated today and far more than do trivial period detail such a jean sideburn or the garish lime green paintwork of his sport car . this sort of cod philosophy become one of the first casualty of the aid epidemic . if we watch emmanuelle today and it be not a an erotic experience and despite the undoubted charm of it heroine and and certainly not a an intellectual one and but a a slight and inadvertently amusing period piece . 4/10 .