This is How Movies Should Be Made

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Better than most people think

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

"Ecstasy" has long been famous for scenes of the teen-aged Hedy Lamarr (as Hedy Keisler) scampering through the bushes sans clothes. Racy enough for the time, these scenes are comparably mild by today's standards.The film opens with newlyweds Eva (Lamarr) and Emile (Zvanimir Rogaz) crossing the thresh hold of their home. Emile is much older than Eva and is set in his ways to the point of falling asleep on their wedding night. Emile has little time for a passionate relationship. Eva over time, becomes increasingly frustrated with the situation and returns home to her father (Leopold Kramer).One day while riding in the countryside, Eva stops for a skinny dip leaving her robe upon her horse. The horse wanders away and Eva is left in the lurch as it were. A young construction worker Adam (Albert Mog) catches the horse and searches for its owner. Eva meanwhile has also been searching for the animal. Adam finds her cowering nude behind a bush. He chivalrously throws her her clothes. While fleeing the embarrassing situation Eva trips and injures her ankle. Adam goes after her and the two become attracted to each other.During the night, Eva becomes uncontrollably drawn to Adam's home and the two become lovers. It turns out that Eva's husband is Adam's boss and somehow, has learned of the affair. He takes Adam on a seemingly suicidal car ride which ends with the older man falling ill. Later Emile goes to Eva's father's home to plead with her to return to him. She refuses. Later, a tragic event occurs which greatly upsets Eva and...........................................................The celebrated nude scenes are shown mostly in long shots with only glimpses of Ms. Lamarr running between the bushes. The swimming scenes culminating with Hedy emerging from the water showing all, are similarly shown in grainy long shots. The shot of Eva experiencing passion or if you will, ecstasy is well done but suffers from the grainy print from which the DVD was struck. Apparently Ms. Lamarr's husband of the day (she was married 6 times), tried to buy up existing prints of the film but failed.

This is a very artistic film. Perhaps it is too artistic, as image gets piled upon image. Of course, it is that film where we see Hedy Lamarr in the buff. I guess her husband tried at one time to buy up all the prints, but those things never work. Imagine trying that in 2017. She was a truly beautiful woman and had amazing screen presence. The love making scene is more striking than the nudity. The close-ups of her face as we know what is happening, are really very erotic. Unfortunately for her, she begins to feel guilt, even though her estranged husband deserved to be left behind. For all it's fame, this is a moral story which has a lesson to it. I saw this for the first time many years ago, but really appreciated what the director was able to do upon this, my second viewing. It's really interesting that this wasn't more scandalous than made out to be.

I cannot comment on this film without discussing its significance to me personally. As a child bad health prevented me from ever going to a cinema. I first encountered movies at the end of WWII through Roger Manvilles splendid Penguin book "Film", which brought me so much pleasure as my health began to improve that I wish I could buy another copy to re-read today. My introduction to many classics films such as The Battleship Potemkin, Drifters (Grierson's magnificent documentary), Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Ecstasy; came first through this book and later at my University Art-house cinema. Ecstasy had incurred the wrath of the Vatican, for condoning Eva's desertion of Emil, her subsequent divorce, and the brief swim she took in the buff, but Roger Manville ignored these trivial matters and discussed the film as a triumphant, outstandingly beautiful, visual paean to love - a view echoed by many IMDb users. A very lonely young man, when I saw it, I willingly concurred. No further opportunity to see Ecstasy arose until the introduction of home videos - by then it had become a treasured memory not to be disturbed. Quite recently I finally added Ecstasy to my home video collection and found this assessment very superficial. Ecstasy is much more of a parable on the continuity of human existence, against which individual lives are insignificant - perhaps a tribute to what Bernard Shaw in his aggressively agnostic writings used to term 'The Lifeforce'. Ecstasy portrays a young bride marrying a middle aged man whose sex urge is no longer strong. Disappointed, she returns home and divorces him. Soon after she experiences a strong mutual attraction to a young virile man she meets whilst out horse riding. She makes love for the first time and it is an overwhelming experience. Her former husband cannot face rejection and gives the young man a lift in his car intending that a passing train will kill them both on a level crossing. But the train stops in time and the apparently ill driver is taken to recuperate at a nearby hotel where he later commits suicide by shooting himself. After these exciting climacteric sequences, a bland, predictable and almost inevitable ending emphasises that whilst individual human lives exhibit both joy and tragedy, collectively life continues to carry us all forward in its stream and only through contributing to this stream can we be truly happy. This story is trite, the acting is no more than adequate; and normally such a film would have disappeared into the garbage, as did most of its contemporaries, long ago. What has given Ecstasy its classic status is exceptional cinematography, a continuous lyrical score and very careful loving direction, coupled with something fortuitous but in cinematographic terms very important - it appeared just after the introduction of sound and was probably planned as a silent film. It is sub-titled and its Director has exploited the impact of brief verbal sequences accompanying some sub-titles, and occasionally breaking into the score which so lovingly carries the film forward. This makes it not only almost unique but extremely rewarding to watch. The parable in the tale is stressed continuously but so subtly that only when reflecting after viewing does one become fully aware of it. For example, the names - Eva and Adam; the obsessive behavior of Emil on his wedding night which shows that triviata have become the most important thing in his life and predicate his eventual suicide since he has no adequate purpose to sustain him; the ongoing series of beautiful sequences showing erotic imagery (a bee pollinating a flower, a key entering a lock, a breaking necklace during Eva's virginal lovemaking sequence with Adam, etc.); and the final post-suicide sequences which could have been filmed in many different ways but serve to extol the importance to individuals of performing some type of work that contributes positively to Society, as well as of creating new life to sustain this society after we ourselves pass on. As a 1933 film I would rate this at 9 - even comparing it with contemporary works I would not reduce this below 8. For me the film will always remain a "must see", (although you may feel that my background remarks above indicate some bias in this judgment). Unfortunately in North America contemporary assessments of this film have been distorted by the extreme 1930's reaction to Hedy Kiesler's very brief and relatively unimportant nude scene which she had difficulty living down in Hollywood (some critics, who have clearly not seen such classic films as Hypocrites, Hula, Back to God's Country, Bird of Paradise or some of the early works of D.W. Griffiths and C.B. deMille, have even erroneously referred to this as the first appearance of a nude actress in a feature film). This scene was probably part of the original novel, and the film would have been very little different if the Director had chosen to rewrite it.Two further thoughts; firstly this is a Czech film, released there in 1933. Its final message about hard work generating positive benefits for society must have seemed very superficial to its viewers when a few years later their country became the first victim of Nazi oppression and was virtually destroyed for at least two generations (I do not remember these sequences being screened just after the war when I first saw this film - were they removed from the copy I saw then?). Secondly for me its main message today is that things of real beauty are often very transitory even though their memory may stay with one for a lifetime. We should all be thankful that today some of them can be captured on camera and viewed again at our convenience.

This was a very daring film for it's day. It could even be described as soft-core porn for the silent era. It was a talkie, but dialog was extremely limited, and in German. One did not need it anyway.The young (19) Hedy Lamarr gets trapped in a loveless marriage to an obsessive (stereotype?) German and after a short time in a marriage that was apparently never consummated, returns home to her father.In a famous and funny scene, she decides to go skinny dipping one morning when her horse is distracted by another. She is then forced to run across a field chasing after it, as she left her clothing on the horse. An engineer retrieves her horse and returns her clothing - after getting an eyeful.They sit for a while and, in a zen moment, he presents her with a flower with a bee sitting on top. This is where she thinks back to her honeymoon and the actions of her husband and an insect. She knows this man is different.She returns home and eventually seeks out our young fellow, and finds the ecstasy she was denied. You can use your imagine here, but his head disappears from view and we see her writhing with pleasure. Since he never got undressed, you can imagine... Certainly, an homage to women by the director Gustav Machatý, and a shock to 1933 audiences.The only thing that mars this beautifully filmed movie is the excessive guilt, and a strange ending.