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Sweet Ecstasy
Douce violence
review by
Gregory Avery, 5 March 2004
In the film Sweet Ecstasy,
the young Elke Sommer looks up at the camera with star sapphire eyes
gazing from beneath a mound of wild, unruly white-blond hair. She
plays a tigerish young thing named ... Elke, who lives as she wants,
loves as she wants, and sets two men who are interested in her
against each other, one of whom is almost killed.
Sweet Ecstasy came out in
the U.S. in 1962, six years after the release of And God Created
Woman caused an international sensation. In that film, the young
Brigitte Bardot played Juliette, who lived as she wanted, loved as
she wanted, and set two men (brothers, to be precise) who are
interested in her against each other, one of whom is almost killed.
(A third man, played by Curd Jurgens, is also interested in Juliette
but knows when to put the brakes on.)
That's not the only similarity the
two films have. They both take place in French coastal towns (Sweet
Ecstasy on the Cote d'Azur, facing the Mediterranean). Christian
Pezey, who plays the younger of the two men in Sweet Ecstasy,
bears a marked resemblance to Jean-Louis Trintignant, the younger
man in the Bardot film. In both films, there's a scene where the
lead female character dances provocatively to exotic music. (Also,
both female characters are blond, Bardot having dyed her hair blond
to play Juliette.)
The character of Elke in Sweet
Ecstasy states upfront that she is "incapable of loving anyone",
meaning she is incapable of having emotions for someone. Bardot's
Juliette in And God Created Woman, because she has no
inhibitions about herself, was seen as being detached and,
therefore, amoral, a misinterpretation of the instinctive,
unaffected (in terms of actorly mannerisms) persona which came
across in the film. It was not indicative of an absence of feeling.
(Although Bardot, towards the end of her acting career, would
increasingly hide beneath long blond hair and black eyeliner makeup,
whether she was appearing in a Western or a modern-day story.)
And God Created Woman made instant celebrities out of "B.B." (a
trained classical dancer who had appeared in mostly bit parts and
supporting roles) and her director, Roger Vadim. By 1962, Bardot had
shown she could act, in Henri-Georges Clouzot's La Vérité
(tragically unavailable in the U.S., at the moment), and was about
to appear in Jean-Luc Godard's new film Contempt; Vadim had
made his modern day version of Les Liaisons Dangereuse, and
his remarkable vampire drama Blood and Roses, both with
then-current wife Annette Stroyberg (who, in the latter, is seen
floating across the grounds of a country house, in a silvery couture
dress, as a party is breaking up during the early morning hours).
Christian Pezey's character,
Olivier, is first seen entering a theater where rehearsals are being
held for something called Les Chemins Dangereuse (Dangerous
Roads). His sister, Claire (played by Claire Maurier), is staring in
it; backstage, she asks him what the matter is. "Are you in love?"
"No. Just depressed," Olivier replies. (Yes, Sweet Ecstasy
has been dubbed by anonymous drones into English.) Sister Claire,
naturally, scolds him ("That is the end!"); Olivier then meets
Barbara (Vittoria Prada), a nice girl to whom he offers a lift in
his roadster, hence to nearby Villefranche, where they run into the
juvenile delinquents.
Albeit they're juvenile delinquents
who say things like, "We've got the yacht for the weekend!" They're
more like bohemian types, spawned by rich families. The nominal
leader is Maddy, played by Pierre Brice, who bears a resemblance to
the young Alain Delon in Purple Noon. He and Olivier engage
in some banter on morality, after which Maddy suggests that Olivier
go a round with Elke, even though up until then Elke had been
Maddy's girl. This leads to the one scene which probably scandalized
American audiences in 1962 -- Elke and Olivier are accelerating from
Phase One to Phase two when, oops! Elke's blouse pops open. (Not to
worry, you don't get to see too much of anything.) Then Olivier
turns into a wet blanket: he doesn't want to engage in THAT sort of
empty love. Elke, understandably, responds by telling him to go play
with the fishes, and you can't blame her -- a gentleman usually
doesn't get a woman that hot and bothered and then refuses to be
attentive to her needs (which is seen in some quarters as sadistic).
The movie hedges its bets, however -- an earlier scene has already
shown that Maddy and Elke have conspired against Olivier, deciding
that Olivier is too good for his own good, and that Elke will serve
as the corrupting force. The film's original French title was
Douce Violence -- Tender Violence.
This was the second of two films
the director Max Pecas made with Elke Sommer -- the actress is more
recognizable as Elke Sommer in the first film, Daniella by Night,
a murder mystery that Radley Metzger's Audubon Films, the American
distributor, sold as a saucy romp through the clubs and fashion
houses of Paris. For the 1959 film Un Mundo para mí -- which
starred Agnes Laurent, another "nouveau Bardot" -- Metzger
completely re-edited and cut in boodles of new footage, releasing it
as Soft Skin on Black Silk. It looks like some clipping was
done on Sweet Ecstasy, too -- characters will walk off-camera
and, in the next shot, magically appear at an airport miles away,
with no explanation as to how they got there. Along with the
oops-my-blouse-popped-open scene, Sweet Ecstasy features a
surfside tussle between Maddy and Elke, a scene where Elke is tied
up and then auctioned off to the highest bidder, and another where
she is trapped and almost burned alive. Maddy and Olivier,
inevitably, get riled and settle their differences between each
other in a sort-of duel involving platforms raised and lowered by
cranes and a building that's under construction. Charles Aznavour
co-wrote the incidental music for the film, which also uses two
songs recorded by French rock star Johnny Hallyday (taken from his
1961 album Viens Danser Le Twist, the French title for the
Chubby Checker song Let's Do the Twist). (Hallyday can
currently be seen in the film Crime Spree, opposite another
French pop singer, Renaud -- they actually have a scene where their
two characters keep switching between radio stations that are
playing songs recorded by Renaud and Johnny Hallyday.)
While Sweet Ecstasy may not
be as risque as it once was, I wouldn't exactly say that the film
has turned entirely quaint. I've always liked Elke Sommer, and,
having now seen this film, am rather glad that she broke out of the
Bardot wannabe mode and found her own screen persona. Just as a good
part of the success of A Shot in the Dark has to do with her
portrayal of the housemaid Maria, whom everyone is convinced is a
murderer (save for Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouzot), whatever edge
Sweet Ecstasy retains has to do with her portrayal of a
wanton seductress, fiery and changeable, gradually deciding that she
would like to stay with one man and one man only. I'm sure she was
probably glad to throw the teasing comb away after this film,
though.
Time has been somewhat kind to both
Sommer and Bardot's careers. Bardot famously ended her film career
in 1974 (in her last big feature role, she, literally, sent her
screen persona up in flames), devoting herself to the foundation she
set up for the protection of animals. (And taking time to write a
memoir -- which is another story.) Sommer is still active as a
performer, having appeared in two noteworthy Mario Bava films,
including Lisa and the Devil, with its remarkable dreamlike
structure, and giving a chilling performance as Magda Goebbles in
the miniseries Inside the Third Reich, opposite Rutger Hauer
and Derek Jacobi.
And Sweet Ecstasy contains
one scene where two water-skiers tear off across the Bay of Cannes,
the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet clearly visible in the
background, while, on the soundtrack, Johnny Hallyday can be heard
howling, "Il faut saisir sa chance quand elle passe" -- seize the
chance when she comes. You can't get more blissfully Sixties than
that. |
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