Delta of Venus (1995)

Based on Anais Nin's pre-WWII book. The lead character is an eager American writer with sex on her twentysomething mind either as voyeur or as a participant.Running Time: 101 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 794043632426 Product Description

Shallow pornography

Cinematography was very good but the writing was obviously a carrier for a pornography film. I a not a prude but I do know a good story and well-developed, if not admirable, characters when I see them. Acting was adequate for such a poor film. However, how are actresses supposed to act in pornography? September 23, 2008

erotic?...gimmy me a break

I bought this opus expecting erotic fantasies.....geee, I was mistaken.
Yes, there is some nudity which hardly erotic and not a fantasy at all.
I guess its hard to imagine new things, after all humanity familiar with erotic fantasies no more than a couple years, yeahh, like say 5000?
If you looking for fantasies try Italian flicks as my favored Tinto Brass. July 20, 2008

High sap factor

If you like a highly romanticized, misty movie with pretty pictures, lots of "breathy" voices, tons of over-acted sex and virtually no plot, this could be the movie for you. The film, although based on a book with more substance, glossed over the things that may have given it depth and over-played the erotic to the point of humor. Perception of counter-cultural life in the time of World War II France, artistic expression as a component of revolution, or self-awareness through sexuality were covered in a haze of intense meaningful gazes (with the usual suspects),romantic French music and scenes of the Eiffel Tower. If there's a movie cliche to make a romantic scene romantic, you will find it in this movie. Rent it when you've just broken up with your partner, are feeling miserable and need to be reminded of how goofy the whole thing is. Otherwise, watch The Tudors instead.
The Tudors - The Complete First Season May 21, 2008

Alpha of ennui.

Delta of Venus (Zalman King, 1995)

Ah, the NC-17 rating. It has, since its inception, become arguably more controversial than the existence of the MPAA itself. It's well-known, by now, that an NC-17 rating is a virtual guarantee that your film will either get arthouse exposure at maximum or go straight to video (the most recent example being Ang Lee's new flick Lust, Caution, which garnered an NC-17 and has been ignored by theaters despite its director's lofty reputation). It's a rating that promises dark desires, serious depravity, stuff you just can't find in R-rated movies. And here's a guarantee for you: the vast majority of NC-17 films will simply not deliver on the promises being handed you not by the filmmakers, but by the overly prudish, out-of-touch MPAA.

Delta of Venus is a perfect example of such a flick. How hard can it be to make intelligent, literate porn from the writings of Anais Nin? Impossible, it would seem, in the hands of softcore maven Zalman King (Two Moon Junction). King manages to make a film that is deeply and completely unerotic for the vast majority of its length. Someone once described poker as long stretches of boredom beset with moments of sheer terror; that's as good a description of Delta of Venus as any.

The plot, if you can call anything in this mess a plot: Elena (King regular Audie England) is an American expatriate trying to garner herself a writing career in Paris on the eve of World War II. She meets Lawrence Walters (Picket Fences' Costas Mandylor), a fellow American expatriate, and beings an affair with him; when she sees him with another woman, her heart is broken, and her writing career begins in earnest as she flings herself into Parisian promiscuity.

Audie England is certainly easy on the eyes, but if this performance is any indication, she's not all that great an actress. Though it's quite a trick, when you think about it, to be both wooden and overdramatic at the same time. King does have an eye for beautiful women, though, and he stocks the film with quite a few, all of whom are eager to shed their clothing at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, the hat drops far too rarely here, as various "oh, look, the war is coming" subplots rear their ugly heads on a regular basis. But what makes this even worse is that the main plot, the love story between Elena and Lawrence, doesn't ring any truer than the war subplot. It's too easy to denigrate the film by calling it a series of vignettes with an extremely weak frame story (after all, Nin's book is a series of vignettes with no frame story at all), but it's too tough to find anything worthwhile in it to spend any more time trying. Half a star simply because I finished it, though for the life of me I have no idea why. (half)
November 1, 2007

Depends on what you're looking for...

This film has nearly optimum appeal if you're looking for panting, sexual tension and visual release. The plot centers on a young woman's effort to delve deeply into the world of sexual pleasure to write books that please a man who requests explicit descriptions of sexual activity. She begins timidly exploring, then emerses herself into an unrealistic world of sexual ideaology. Sex of the mind and body, of man and woman, and of woman and woman are explored with cinematic flair. Production is A-quality, but the plot still centers on sex. A love story of sorts, the movie is basically a sophisticated soft porn piece that does little to engage the mind. Under the guise of a mainstream movie, this is definitely not a film to view with a group of friends. November 17, 2006

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