A Young Emmanuelle (1976) User Reviews

sleazy in some parts but overall a bit tame

[trashgang · 6/10 · 26 March 2012]

Mid seventies everything was possible. On 42nd they had their glory days with porn, in Europe they were doing erotic flicks. Some became notorious as Emmanuelle (1974)or as Spielen wir Liebe (Maladolescenza 1977)or Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972). The last two became famous due young actresses going nude with an age mostly just on the border of youngsters. Maladolescenza is still not released due 14 year old ones going naked all the way. Nevertheless, it was a time to shock viewers with themes' about youngsters searching out how to make love.

Nea is also a perfect example. It clocked in on the success of Emmanualle because it was also called Nea: A Young Emmanuelle. But the German release said it all, Die erotischen Phantasien einer 16 Jährigen.

It's about a 16 year old girl (Ann Zacharias)trying to write an erotic novel. She succeeds and finds a publisher (Sami Frey). He agrees. But she wants to find out more about love and by seeing her mother having a lesbian affair which she's watching, she decides to find out what love is all about and starts a relation with the publisher. But the publisher is of course messing around with other girls. She's out for revenge.

No don't think to see blood or whatsoever. The reason I watched it is because the way she's taking revenge is a bit sleazy. She knows a guy who never had love and she takes him in her room to make use of his semen for the revenge, that part is sleazy but never becomes explicit. In fact, up to today's standards it's a bit low on everything. It do contains nudity and frontal male nudity but as I said, never becomes explicit. The theme about a 16 year old wanting sex with an adult was a shocker back then. But Maladolescenza and Last Tango In Paris were more shocking due the age of the youngsters. Still, it's fun to watch how she seducing the publisher and when she's playing with herself it's being edited with a cat, one to see. Sometimes funny but never shocking, still, if you want to see sleaze from France watch it or go for Une Vraie Jeunne Fille from the same year. All about the same theme, searching for the perfect sex.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 3/5 Effects 0/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0,5/5

Superior riff on "Emmanuelle"

[lazarillo · 1 February 2009]

This another 1970's "Emmanuelle" knock-off, but it's a little more "official" than most since it's based on a novel by the original Emmanuelle Arsan. A teenage girl (Anna Zacharias) is caught pilfering erotic books from a bookstore. She convinces the handsome young bookstore owner (Sami Fray) to let her write an erotic book for him which he can publish anonymously. The problem is she's a virgin, so she needs to do the appropriate "research" in order to write the novel. She spies on her mother with her lesbian lover and the bookstore owner with his female co-worker. She convinces the lovestruck servant boy to strip for her. Finally though, she decides too get some actual firsthand experience by going to bed with her new publisher. Afterwards though he betrays her, so she takes revenge. . .

This film was directed by a woman (Nelly Kaplan), and while it's not really any less erotic, it is (for better or worse) considerably less sleazy than some of the "Emmanuelle" knock-offs (especially the Italian ones). It has solid production values and surprisingly good acting. Ann Zacharias was actually in her early twenties at the time, but is pretty convincing playing a younger character. She does sexy pretty well of course, but her character is also pretty funny--putting on a thick pair of glasses to studiously observe the sex scenes, or clinically inspecting her horny servant boy's manhood with a pair of forceps. (For whatever, reason Zacharias kind of struck me as a French-Scandinavian version British actress Pamela Franklin in films like "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie"). She is actually a much better actress than either Sylvia "Emmanuelle" Kristel or Annie "Laure" Belle, the two much more famous actresses to portray Arsan's erotic heroines. It's kind of a shame she never did much beyond this.

I've seen just about all the 1970's riffs on "Emmanuelle", and this is definitely one of the better ones. I'd recommend it.

Ann Zacharias is cute!!

[pvn9 · 8/10 · 18 July 2005]

A very good movie for a bored time. The story is centered around an adolescent girl (Sybill) who writes a very amazing and best selling erotic fiction with the help of her publisher. The book is titled Nea and the writer remains anonymous because she is not yet eighteen. She also ends up falling in love with her publisher, who instead falls for Sybill's elder sister. Rest of the plot centers around Sybill plotting revenge...

It is a well made movie and highlights quite a few issues very nicely. For example, parental relations and sibling relations are handled very sensitively. Over that, Ann is very cute and she fits the role of the obsessed adolescent perfectly. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is bored and want some fun.

Better than average erotic film - but don't expect the novel

[johngammon56 · 5 October 2006]

I saw this film some years ago, and was struck by one well-handled early scene of the heroine's life in which she inadvertently witnesses her mother's lesbian affair with a younger woman, which apparently forges the girl's interest in sexual matters. This is a better than average erotic film, but it has to be pointed out to fans of Emmanuelle Arsan that the plot of this film bears no relationship whatsoever to her novel Nea. The book is about a young, rather manipulative girl who seduces a succession of both men and women including her sister, her headmistress and her father. The main plot of the novel concerns Nea's allegation of rape against her sister's lover, Maurice. He goes to prison for this, but she carries on her relationship with him and eventually has him released. Nea suddenly becomes rich and builds a kind of sexual retreat for her lovers and others, which she rules. The book ends on the depressive, faux existential note of many French novels falsely claiming intellectual depth. Nea ends up, as she puts it, "waiting for death". Neither the film nor the book merits the publicity line that was put on them, "A young Emmanuelle" - Nea is an entirely different character.

A film of real, if inherently debatable strengths

[philosopherjack · 23 August 2018]

Nelly Kaplan's Nea embodies some of the classic ambiguities of female-desire-centric cinema, as seen (at least insofar as the director comes first among competing inputs and influences) from a female perspective. The film (also known as A Young Emmanuelle and variations thereon) conforms to many aspects of the manipulative template: it undresses its women much more than its men, at intervals that seem (without having checked) pretty evenly spaced out so as to avoid fidgeting, focusing on particular on the sexuality of a precocious (and also frequently naked, in a way that encourages near-clinical examination) 16-year-old protagonist, Sybille. But it generally feels like an authentic attempt to excavate the girl's perspective, frequently placing her in the position of observer (putting on her big glasses for emphasis) - the other main perspective is that of her cat, which seems broadly complementary. The plot itself emphasizes her as principal actor - she works up her fantasies into an anonymously-published book which becomes a best seller, but when her publisher Axel (Sami Frey, cool as ever) resists taking their relationship further, she decides to deploy the perception of her innocence as a weapon against him. The rape fantasy that ends up becoming true is another often-questionable device which here gets somewhat repurposed; ultimately, the (rather abrupt) ending certainly reflects Sybille's desires and actions more than those of Axel (with the side benefit along the way of facilitating her mother's sexual awakening also). None of this compares with Kaplan's La fiancée du pirate, which is much more zestily provocative on its own terms, and more broadly resonant as a social critique (its knockabout rustic setting seems more productive than Nea's standard-issue country mansion, notwithstanding at times that the interiors, especially Nea's lair, carry an alluring fairy-tale-like quality), but the scepter of the earlier film is useful in focusing on Nea's real, if inherently debatable strengths.