Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Roger Vadim's directorial debut And God Created Woman is more titillation than continental cool, but it broke box-office records and censorship taboos in its teasing display of sex and eroticism in the sunny vacation playground of the Saint-Tropez seashore. Vadim ushered in the era of continental attitudes toward sex and christened the voluptuous Brigitte Bardot (his wife) the world's original sex kitten: earthy, innocent, and all fleshy curves. Bardot is Juliette, a pouty child-woman orphan prone to nude sunbathing and playful flirting. Though pursued by a rich widower (Curt Jurgens) and attracted to the brawny fisherman Antoine (Christian Marquand), she marries Antoine's shy younger brother Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), an earnest, innocent kid hardly older than she but far less worldly. Despite her sincere efforts to "be good," Juliette gives in to Michel's advances, setting off a chain of events that ends in fraternal conflict. Vadim keeps the display of skin this side of an R rating, but only barely, teasing the male audience with skimpy outfits, barely concealing sheets, and often conveniently arranged scenery. Bohemian Bardot frolics through the film with nary a self-conscious moment, culminating in a passionate mambo, her pent-up frustration and sexual confusion exploding in a mad dance as bongos pound away on the soundtrack. Who needed Viagra in the '50s when Bardot was around? --Sean Axmaker
Synopsis
In Roger Vadim's directorial debut, his then-wife, Brigitte Bardot, plays Juliette, a sumptuous orphan beauty who sparks an incendiary and erotically charged love triangle between herself and three men who desire her. Spending her days barefoot and barely working in the town tabac, Juliette loves to listen to the jukebox at the local bar and saunter past the men in town; all the while, she has eyes only for local thug Antoine. Millionaire Eric Carradine desires Juliet as much as he desires Antoine's family's oceanfront property. After being coldly spurned by Antoine, Juliette is rescued from a return to the orphanage when Antoine's timid younger brother, Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), proposes marriage, at the suggestion of Carradine. As the unlikely couple works hard at achieving a semblance of happiness, the dark forces that dwell inside Juliette's restless spirit force her closer and closer to Antoine. Vadim lets Bardot revel in the CinemaScope and Technicolor beauty of the film, and the simmering mambo-infused soundtrack traces the plot's erotic undercurrents as they drive all the characters toward an inevitable climax of erotic and violent explosion, personal revelation, and a New Wave definition of love and romance.