This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Blistering performances.

Bilitis (Patti d'Arbanville) attends an all-girl school that is about to break for summer... Once on vacation, Bilitis comes to hold with her developing sexuality and strikes up a romantic liaison with a local boy… A secondary romance concerns Bilitis' female guardian and her new husband… The treatment of sensuality is soft and beautiful, which is in keeping with Hamilton's style of photography… At the beginning of the film, we see the sweet, sensual bodies of the schoolgirls exuberantly bathing in a mountain lake… When Bilitis is finally seduced, it is exaggerated romance, heavily diffused, implying rather than showing their coupling… The lovemaking between the married couple is equally stylized, but more steamy

I must have seen this movie on some early subscription service like ON TV or Spectravision, before super explicit pay services or video. I had to have been 18, and the fact that it was in french made it even more exotic. All i remembered all these years was the name of the actresss. It's how I located the title, so i must have fallen in love with Patti D'Arbanville around this time. Maybe Don Johnson did too.

I was so let down by this film. The tag line was something like 'The story of a girls sexual awakening'. You can only imagine how disappointed I was. I was seventeen at the time and I took my girlfriend to see it. I thought we were going to see a sexy movie that would leave my girlfriend gagging for it. Sadly that was not the case. I guess we just weren't ready for a deep and meaningful movie that required an element of sophistication that we just didn't possess at the time. I'm not so sure I possess it now, and I have long since parted company with that particular girlfriend (pity really... my first love). We left the cinema half way through the film, my friend, who should have known better, stayed for the whole thing. I still got the required result with my girlfriend, the film just didn't help much. It would be interesting to see it again so that I can make a more informed critique, though I feel the experience has left me scarred for life.

It's dreadful, but ...Cat Stevens fans are given the opportunity to see the woman who inspired the lovely song "Lady D'Arbanville" on his album "Mona Bone Jakon", before Cat turned into a fatwa-supporting religious zealot.