It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is one that sent church and censors in disarray when it made its way to America, no doubt for the divorced woman who runs fully naked through the woods. The things people would be so uptight about, so tame to us now. But it introduced Lamarr to Hollywood.A young woman then who yearns to be open to sense things, live life, but she's stifled by thankless marriage. The whole plot is typical, what they were calling kammerspiel in Germany, about the twists and turns of love, until the moral denouement that inevitably parts lovers.But instead of narrowing down to a room and stage, it opens up sense to things, we have a poetry of evocative skies, nature, reflections, glances of the eye that conjoin a wider world. In many respects it might as well have been a silent, dialogue is scant.And it does more than paint in fact, it paints the state of mind that gives rise to the pulls that create narrative. You'll see this in the famous scene mentioned above, where capricious horse nature sends her out to meet her mate. Or the marvelous scene later that night of anxiously being unsure if she wants to go to his house, rendered with wind through an empty house and dark rolling skies above.It's simple in contrasts and goes down rather easy but dressed and timed to resonate. The ex husband languishing in an empty room while the lovers are greeted with music in the tavern next door. Love isn't allowed last say however as if that would be too upsetting for the social norm.But something else is, more poignant eventually.The ending shows a working site with tools strewn about, deserted at morning. But does life stop in its tracks because a woman left? We now see workers file in and joyously go to work, the work of doing is resumed with song, the ground transformed, a faucet turned on and waters of life pour freely. It's the most vital scene in the film, emulating the Soviet filmmakers but so good it's worthy of being in Zemlya.

Hedy Lamarr (as Eva Hermann) made a sensational splash in the Czechoslovakia-made "Ecstasy" by swimming and running nude, and appearing orgasmic while embracing hunky Aribert Mog (as Adam). In her autobiographical "Ecstasy and Me" (1966), the increasingly beautiful Ms. Lamarr revealed her passionate look to be the result of director Gustav Machaty jabbing her in the arse with a safety pin."You will lie here," Lamarr quoted Mr. Machaty as explaining, "I will be underneath, out of camera range. When I prick you a little on your backside, you will bring your elbows together and you will REACT!"Moreover, Lamarr reported Mr. Mog (during the filming, a paramour) was a realistic, "Method" actor; "his vibrations of actual sex proved highly contagious." They do make an attractive couple. Alas, the notorious (and nicely restored) film is overbearingly symbolic, and surprisingly flaccid. Although it's considered a foreign language film, "Ecstasy" is a "silent" film with sound effects and dubbing.***** Ekstase (1/20/33) Gustav Machaty ~ Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, Zvonimir Rogoz, Leopold Kramer

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.

There's nothing new about the story. Naive young Emma Bovary married older man, finds he's not very exciting, leaves older man, finds younger man, drops mescaline, smokes rainbow, paints political slogans on body, goes back to older man -- no, he dies, that's right, of a "self-inflicted gunshot wound" -- nibbles madeleine cake dipped in tea, broods over lost love who dumped her for cheerleader, meets movie mogul, is morphed into Hedy Lamarr, is busted for shoplifting -- and the rest you know.I hadn't seen this for a generation. The last print I saw was chopped to pieces and was a lousy print. This one, which appeared on Turner Classic Movies, is about as good as we're likely to get now. And it's not bad either.Definitely a chick flick though, rather like "Lady Chatterly's Lover" or any one of a number of stories with similar themes. The horny young man is not named Count Vronsky but he might as well be.The director, whom I'd never heard of, does the best he can with this slightly shapeless script. I don't mean the nude scenes which by today's standards are dismissible. I mean the way he allows Hedy Keisler turn away from the camera and hide her face behind a door jamb when she must register shock and guilt. And -- good grief -- what he does with symbolism! When the young couple are developing the hots for each other -- let me think -- he's got a bee pollinating a flower, a male horse huffing and puffing around a mare in estrus, a rising wind, a burning lantern -- please, I'm trying to remember. Yes, when she is suddenly rendered virgo no-longer intacta, her pearl necklace breaks and the pearls roll around on the floor.The old guy knows who the young guy is and gives him a ride in his six-cylinder convertible. The car picks up speed in a truly excitingly photographed and very tense scene as the old driver is deciding whether or not to kill them both by running into a train. He stops short, at the same time as the locomotive, and the locomotive boiler releases its pressure in a plume of steam and a terrifyingly exhausted hiss.Not much acting is called for, this being on the cusp of talking and silent movies at that time and in that place. Hedy Lamarr was only twenty and a little plumper and sexier than we are used to seeing her, though that description doesn't extend to her bosom, kind of a nice touch.It's worth seeing. It's not just an historical curiosity. If you're in the right mood you'll be caught up in the story, sad as it is.