Name: Film Review: Ecstasy (Ekstase, 1933)
Item: Ecstasy
Rating: 60
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org

Europe was, at least in the 20th century, more relaxed towards the open display of sexuality than some other parts of the world. That might explain why some of the most groundbreaking or classic examples of erotica in mainstream cinema can be found in films made on the Old Continent. Among those films usually considered the first of that kind is Ecstasy, the 1933 Czechoslovakian drama directed by Gustav Machatý.

The plot begins when middle-aged Berlin businessman Emil Jarman (played by Zvonimir Rogoz) brings home his newly wed young and beautiful wife Eva (played by Hedy Lamarr). It soon becomes apparent that Emil either cannot or will not physically consummate the marriage. An increasingly frustrated Eva decides to leave him and go to the country estate of her horse-breeding father (played by Leopold Kramer). There she spends one day riding and indulges in a little skinny dipping in a nearby lake. Her horse runs away with her clothes, forcing Eva to chase him over the fields completely naked. She is rescued from her predicament by Adam (played by Aribert Mog), a young engineer who is building a road in the area. She is immediately attracted to the dashing man, and the next night visits his cottage where they have passionate sex. The two begin planning a life together, but fate interferes when Emil comes in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to reconcile with his former wife.

Despite its simple melodramatic plot, Ecstasy looks like an art film. Made with relatively early sound technology, for the most part it works like a product of the silent era and relies on visual imagery, silent acting and a music score by Giuseppe Becce to tell the story. Dialogue is very sparse, which may be the result of practical considerations. Machatý had to reshoot each of those scenes more than twice, because Ecstasy was made in three different language versions – German, Czech and French. On the other hand, the lack of dialogue is compensated by the very good cinematography of Hans Androschin and Jan Stallich. The film is full of symbolic and suggestive images like horses or erotic sculptures, but also puts Czech locations to good use, resulting in many scenes of great natural beauty. The same can be said of the famous scene in which Hedy Lamarr, one of the most beautiful actresses of her time, appears nude. The scene is quite tame and almost harmless by today's standards, but it was shocking for the 1930s. That was even more the case with a later scene in which Lamarr acts the first orgasm in the history of mainstream cinema. Yet, although visually impressive, Ecstasy isn't without its flaws, mostly having to do with excessive length, especially the confusing ending which looks like a Soviet propaganda film about virile working-class men that somehow got edited into this erotic drama by mistake. What ultimately elevates the film is the excellent acting, with the trio of main actors – Lamarr, Rogoz and Mog – delivering strong and memorable performances.

Ecstasy was shown at the Venice Film Festival where it created a sensation, but also brought a lot of controversy with its erotic content. It was officially banned by the US government as pornography, condemned by Pope Pius XI and subjected to cuts and other forms of censorship in many countries until being finally allowed in its original form only in the 1970s, when the standards of film erotica became more relaxed. For the 18-year-old Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr, then still credited under her original name "Hedy Kiesler", it almost became the last film. Soon after the film, she married Friedrich Mandl, a wealthy arms manufacturer who was 15 years her senior; Mandl was obsessed with control, demanded that his wife quit acting and spent large sums of money in an ultimately failed attempt to track down and destroy all copies of Ecstasy. Five years later, she escaped and divorced her husband and started a successful career in Hollywood, where the moguls pretended that her early risqué role could be reconciled with the dour puritanical principles of the Hays Code era. Lamarr would much later become famous for her tinkering with electronics, which resulted in a couple of patents that are the basis for modern mobile phone technology. Her partner, German actor Aribert Mog, with whom she, according to later memoirs, had off-screen chemistry, wasn't as lucky; he was drafted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World War and died on the Eastern Front. Croatian actor Zvonimir Rogoz, on the other hand, lived to a ripe old age and even became a celebrity in his own country after fathering a child at 92.

Ecstasy is a well-made film that can be appreciated by fans of Hedy Lamarr and early 1930s European cinema, but its slow pace might be challenging for modern viewers. Cinephiles will nevertheless enjoy it, and in 1982 Serbian director Slobodan Šijan spoofed it in his cult black comedy The Marathon Family.

RATING: 6/10 (++)