Lilith Likes to Watch - Immoral Tales

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Title: Immoral Tales
Year: 1984

Starring: Lise Danvers, Paloma Picasso, Charlotte Alexandra, Fabrice Luchini, Florence Bellamy, Pascale Christophe

Director: Walerian Borowczyk

Synopsis: An erotic collection of short stories, an anthology comprised of tantalizing tales about sexual desire and its diverse manifestations. - Via IMDB

Lilith's Notes: 2nd most popular French erotic film at time of release.

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"Those who touch the gown will know the meaning of eternal joy!"

So, we all have a basic consensus around porn, right? What it is, and all that? Well, a while ago, people began to attach '-porn' to things that are over-indulgant. Gore-porn, misery-porn, costume-porn.. It's an easy descriptor to get one's point across.

Immoral Tales is total costume and settings porn. It is a feast for the eyes.

Too bad some of the stories don't deserve such luxury. Luckily, a few of them do.

Unfortunately, Immoral Tales has a weak beginning with...

The Tide:
Two cousins spend a fun day at the beach talking about their sexual experiences. Julie is younger than her cousin Andre and, while Julie casually admits she's kissed five boys, he brags that he's had a few blowjobs.

He leads her further along the beach and tells her to gobble his cock while they're trapped by the rising tide. He tells her that he's going to explain how tides work while she swallows his cum.
As she blows him, he's so spastic that I firmly believe the boy's never had a BJ in his life. I'm not even sure he's ever been kissed.

This story would have made such a stronger impact if it was either Julie seducing Andre, or two women. The woman, in a position of power and control, explains tides, the lunar cycle and the feminine cycle all together instead of this self-important kid too big for his britches mansplaning water to a girl. We're not off to a good start, movie.

Therese the Philosopher:
This is more like it. This is where I realized the movie was effectively costume-porn.

The setting and costumes are beautiful. Even the props have a rich authenticity to them. Especially Therese's little books. There's an attention to detail that is admirable. This is what The Autobiography of a Flea should have been.

Therese is a young girl locked in her room and she fantasizes about men, and also Jesus I think, and masturbates with a vegetable. The girl is very lovely and the simulated sex is very well done. This what I mean when I say strategically placed limbs.

Gorgeous, but shallow.

But gorgeous.

Erzsebet Bathory:
I love this. I love this so, so much. It has many of my favourite things and puts bathing front-and-centre. This is beautiful, sumptuous, full of pretty girls and amazing set pieces.

Guards come to a town and round up all the pretty, youthful girls to be guests of Lady Bathory. Those who go will get a chance to touch her beautiful gown.

The girls bathe, unaware that strategically place mirrors spy on them while they groom. They're called to a room, naked, and Lady Bathory walks in wearing the most beautiful gown ever to exist. I am not even kidding. I can't even describe it. It's like a mix between a sheer nightgown and wedding dress. All beads and lace and holy shit is this ever pinging my wedding dress kink.

The girls become frenzied with need to touch the gown, they they tear it up while Bathory lays in repose on the bed. They consume the scraps of the dress they tear up, and even start clawing at each other.

Soon all that remains of the girls is a bath tub off blood in which Lady Bathory bathes, massaging the viscus liquid into her skin. Then she kisses her assistant, who is the most beautiful lady in the entire film...

Lucrezia Borgia:
I feel bad for this short. It does everything right. It has blasphemy, playfulness, a wonderful set, but it had to follow the Bathory short and that was just too difficult an act to follow. Also Lucrezia's hairstyle was distractedly stupid.

Lucrezia Borgia fucks her dad and brother. Then they baptize her baby and it's not known who fathered the baby, I guess. That's it. It's better than Therese's story I suppose, but not near as good as Bathory's. This should have been the third story instead of the fourth. There would have been a gradual crescendo of  quality and feast for the eyes and I would have been much kinder to it had that been the case.

A fifth story was to be included in this movie but it was spun off into it's own feature, so look out for a review of Le Bete in the future.

Overall, it's beautiful, every shot could be a painting. But it's shallow and at times so pretentious it borders on parody. Yes, The Tides, I'm talking about you.

I'm giving this a 4 because of the visuals. It's certainly on par with Caligula. If you like watching pretty things, definitely watch this. If you want hardcore, you'll have to find it elsewhere.

LILITH'S SCORE: 4/5

NEXT TIME: Oh man, am I excited! For all of March, Lilith Likes to Watch is doing a themed month exploring the films of her favourite classic porn beauty. Get ready for Money March, a whole month of films featuring Constance Money!