Immoral Tales (1973)

The 1970s was the golden age of cinematic art porn. Today, given the ocean of incredibly crass porn in which we swim, that concept might seem absurd. In fact of course it isn’t inherently absurd. If art and literature can get away with dealing with erotic subject matter (and most people would probably concede that there can be such things as erotic art and erotic literature) there is no logical reason why erotic art movies should not be equally possible. And back in the ’70s there were plenty of people who seriously and sincerely believed that such a concept was possible. 

While many of the ’70s art porn movies are European it’s worth pointing out that the most successful exponent of this genre was an American, Radley Metzger. Metzger’s Camille 2000 and The Lickerish Quartet really are entirely successful blends of softcore porn and art. Metzger also has the distinction of being the only director ever to achieve something that really did seem impossible when he made a successful hardcore porn art movie (The Opening of Misty Beethoven).

But it was Europe where the concept was taken most seriously. Which brings us to Walerian Borowczyk’s Immoral Tales (Contes immoraux), released in 1973. Borowczyk was a  Polish director who had enjoyed considerable success with animated films. He made the move into non-animated feature films in France and achieved both fame and notoriety with Immoral Tales. It was hugely controversial, went on to enjoy enormous commercial success and has divided critics ever since.

It was originally a five-part anthology film but Borowczyk was prevailed upon to excise the third segment which was deemed to be too confronting even in the 1970s (Borowczyk later expanded that excised segment into a full-length feature which was even more outrageous and controversial than Immoral Tales). Critics who like Immoral Tales tend to throw around words like subversive and transgressive and of course taboo-breaking. Critics love those terms.

The first segment is The Tide. André (Fabrice Luchini) is twenty years old but having frequently visited prostitutes he considers himself to be a man of the world. Today he’s off to the beach with his pretty sixteen-year-old cousin Julie (Lise Danvers). He’s intending to begin her education. He has an obsession with her mouth. He is reassured to find out that she has not yet kissed a boy with her mouth, for he has his own ideas about what he intends to do to her mouth, or rather what he intends her to do to him with it. He is going to teach her how to pleasure him orally, just like the whores do. But this is not about fun or anything trivial like that. This is going to be a kind of metaphysical experience.

His idea is that they will pick a spot just about the high tide mark. She will pleasure him with her mouth for half an hour and at the exact moment the tide reaches them events will reach their climax. It will be a fine education for Julie.

It’s clear that there is a dominance-submission thing going on between these two, with Julie being a slightly confused but willing submissive partner. She is keen to further her education.

The segment is beautifully shot and while there is female frontal nudity (with some close-ups of Julie’s crotch) the sexual encounter is not at all graphic. It certainly manages to look and feel arty, as well as kinky and erotic. Does it actually mean anything? Is it saying anything about dominance and submission? Julie is clearly very willing to play the submissive rôle and she’s also clearly not naïve enough to fail to understand what’s going on, indeed she seems to be enjoying herself. Perhaps that’s the point. And maybe she’s really the one who is in control. As the object of obsession she may really be the one calling the shots. She certainly throws herself into the project with plenty of enthusiasm. Or maybe Borowczyk just wanted to shoot an imaginative and original sex scene.

The second segment is Thérèse Philosophe. It is 1890 and Thérèse (Charlotte Alexandra), a very pious young lady, is in trouble and has been locked in her bedroom for three days. What on earth can a girl find to do to keep herself amused all on her own. Fortunately Thérèse is an imaginative girl and there are a number of household objects that look promising. Thérèse has a tendency to see phallic possibilities just about everywhere. She particularly enjoys stroking the organ pipes in the church. 

And there is a basket of common garden vegetables that would seem to fit the bill perfectly. It’s obvious that Thérèse has trouble distinguishing between spiritual yearnings and the yearnings of the flesh. Maybe she can’t find spiritual bliss but with a ready supply of zucchinis a girl can certainly find sexual bliss. This is the least successful of the stories, unless you really have a thing for chicks with zucchinis.

The third segment, Erzsébet Báthory, is based on the story of the real-life Hungarian countess of that name, generally considered to be the most prolific female serial killer of all time. Between 1590 and 1610 she may have tortured and murdered as many as 650 young girls. Attempts have been made to exonerate her but the evidence against her was overwhelming. According to later legends she bathed in the blood of young girls in an attempt to restore her youthful beauty. There were also legends of vampirism and cannibalism. She has been the subject of numerous films, the best-known being probably Hammer’s Countess Dracula.

Although this segment does show Báthory bathing in blood it doesn’t attempt any detailed examination of her motives (and the real-life countess’s motives are in fact unknown). She seems obsessed with possessing the beauty of the girls, in various ways. It’s certainly implied that her motives are in some sense sexual.

Paloma Picasso (yes that Paloma Picasso, daughter of the artist) plays Báthory. This segment is generally regarded as being the most successful of the stories in Immoral Tales. It features a truly staggering amount of female nudity. To a large extent this segment is an exercise in creating interesting compositions using naked female flesh as the raw material. And with a couple of dozen very pretty naked girls available there’s plenty of raw material. The combination of naked women with some excellent sets is certainly aesthetically pleasing.

At first the latest shipment of girls spend most of their time wandering about naked and giggling and generally enjoying themselves. Their enjoyment isn’t going to last. There is a twist at the end, which I won’t spoil.

The final segment, Lucrezia Borgia, deal with another notorious female historical figure. Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and sister of Cesare Borgia. Lucrezia has been accused of disposing of her enemies (and the enemies of Cesare) by poisoning, of incest and sundry other enormities. In Lucrezia Borgia’s case there is some doubt as to her guilt of any of these crimes. This episode has no actual plot at all. Lucrezia has sex with her father and brother while the moral reformist preacher Savonorola is being dragged off for execution. 

This is not exactly a movie that places great demand on the players’ acting abilities. Lise Danvers and Fabrice Luchini (in The Tide) are not bad. Charlotte Alexandra in Thérèse Philosophe is not required to do anything much other than appear to be disturbingly obsessed, which she manages. Paloma Picasso doesn’t act at all. It’s important to state that this is a film in which the characters and the plots don’t matter. This movie is purely an aesthetic exercise. The sets, the locations, the props and the women’s bodies are all used for their aesthetic interest. If any of the players had tried to do some serious acting it would have spoilt the effect. It would have been a distraction. It would have the same disastrous effects as the subject of a painting suddenly talking to the viewer.

With Immoral Tales we’re dealing with a film that really does take seriously both its artistic pretensions and its pornographic pretensions. There’s a lot of sex and an extraordinary amount of nudity including countless close-ups of the actresses’ pubic regions. There probably isn’t a movie from the ’70s that displays more female pubic hair than this one. If you want to approach it as art you have to be able to accept the vast quantity of sex and nudity. And if you want to approach it as softcore porn you have to accept those artistic pretensions. Which means it’s a movie that might end up satisfying aficionados of both art and porn, or it might satisfy neither. There’s also the attempt to link religious corruption with sex so if that’s likely to offend you you might want to avoid this one.

It’s still a fascinating and bold exercise and it’s highly recommended, with those caveats. You’ll either love it or hate it.

The version reviewed here is the old Nouveau Pictures Region 2 DVD, uncut and with a decent anamorphic transfer. Extras include a short doco on the film.

There has been a recent Blu-Ray release from Arrow which includes that excised third segment.