Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

I bought this because I read that it was something of an influence on Ruggero Deodato's 'Cannibal Holocaust' which sort of stands today as like the artistic pinnacle of grindhouse filmaking, and I just wanted it as part of my 'Cannibal Boom' collection.Right out of the mailer, if you got the limited edition slipcased version, you find out that the thing is really snug around the bluray case. It takes some jimmying to get the thing out of it without tearing the fancy-schmancy slipcase. This was also true with Severin's recent release of 'Eaten Alive!' so...that's no fun. It's hard to get it in and out of the slipcase without tearing it. The bluray case is nice glossy black plastic instead of the standard translucent blue which I hate, so that's good.The movie itself is supposed to have been 'remastered from vault elements'. I don't know what kind of leaky basement vault they found these 'elements' in, but this 2k version doesn't look all that great. Maybe D'Amato and co. just couldn't afford very good film stock for this c-grader or the vault elements were copies of copies; it looks like what it is, though, a cheap sleazy grindhouse movie. Sometimes these older movies get re-mastered into looking like they were shot yesterday; this is not the case here. It's fairly grainy and at one point the picture snaps out and you're seeing a split second of burned out film flitting across the screen. Every shadow is pitch black, every bright color is washed out, every medium earth tone is rich and oversaturated. Luckily, since the beautiful Miss Gemser has so much skin on display, the rich earth tones make for a nice touch.The 'influence on Cannibal Holocaust' is debatable. There was a brief segment where Emanuelle and her new lover Professor Lester watch footage of cannibals in Tanzania doing what they do. The basis of the story is that Emanuelle is a hard-nosed journalist doing a gritty piece about chaos in the Amazon, which was sort of the basis for the fictional documentary portrayed in Holocaust. In Holocaust, though, the cannibals come off as somewhat docile until they're riled up by the interloping documentarians; in this, apparently a tribe that was thought to be wiped out resurfaces and goes after anyone and anything that crosses their path. It's hinted at that something might have happened to anger this tribe previous to the films opening but that is not really explored/explained later. Really, 'Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals' is just an excuse to get a lot of actors into an exotic location in order to remove their clothes.Gripes about movie: Every jungle native shown in the movie is a cannibal and every cannibal is a male in a loincloth, even when they're shown in their own island village. Maybe what the tribe is so angry about is that all the women in the tribe left? Emanuelle's young blonde friend is rather graphically molested in her sleep by a stranger they meet in the jungle. She wakes up, alerts her friends and a fight ensues. The stranger wins the fight and afterwards the film goes on as if the molestation and fight had never happened.D'Amato does deliver on some solid, if somewhat cheap looking, gore moments. The cinematography gets pretty wild at times. The sex scenes are softcore, often with the male participant forgetting to remove (or even unzip) their pants prior to penetrative sex but then that's putting the grind in grindhouse.The extras consist mainly of the theatrical trailer and interviews with a lot of the major players. The video interviews are fairly long and all in subtitled Italian with the interviewees expounding at great length upon their long storied careers in which, for the most part, it would seem this film was but a footnote.You can watch the movie with English or Italian dialogue with English subtitles on or off. The English subtitles are written to follow the Italian dialogue so they don't read at all similar to what's being said on the screen with dubbed in English. Also, the dubbing overall is kinda awful. The Italian dialogue was very fast-paced so, for instance, when Emanuelle's sitting around a campfire talking about something, in Italian she'd be saying, "I did this so I want this and now I'm gonna do this. Later I will do other things." Dubbed into English it sounds like "I did this....so I want this.....and now I'm gonna.....do this and....more." That's not a line from the movie, but it's an example of how the dub-job didn't work. At one point where Emanuelle is supposed to be telling someone "I won't hurt you" the dubbed in English has her stating simply "Hurt you." If you prefer your sleazy 70s cannibal movies to have remotely believable performances from the actors, I'd recommend watching this one in Italian with the English subtitles on. Or off if you can understand Italia. Good for you!The soundtrack cd is pretty awesome with Nico Fidenco's lush 70s softcore sounds and synthed up scary jungle atmosphere cues. It's 30 tracks long and sounds a lot better than the sound in the movie itself. Lots of good moody stuff. I suppose this is pretty comparable to Holocaust in the sense that it's got a great soundtrack.

I first saw "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" ("Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali") in Paris along the Champs-Élysée, where it was playing under the title "Viol dans les Tropiques," in the early 1980s. It was the first time that I had ever heard of the film's star, Laura Gemser, whose cinnamon-skinned, statuesque beauty leaves me at a loss for superlatives.As delivery systems for Gemser's eye-popping pulchritude, her films are worth parades, confetti, and a twenty-one-gun salute. But aesthetically speaking, the films themselves are poorly made. Joe D'Amato, maker of "Cannibals" and the director with whom Gemser is most closely associated, is more notable for his sensationalistic subject matter than his handling of a movie camera (the same cannot be said of Russ Meyer).But trying to warn audiences away from Laura Gemser films because they're poorly made is about as useful as warning people away from Häagen-Dazs because its fattening. Most viewers don't go to a Gemser movie to see a well-made film; they go to see a rapturously beautiful woman get herself into one sexual situation after another. On this level, "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" probably won't disappoint its core audience. However, the film is notable for its use of nudity in one scene.In this otherwise schlocky and cheesy exploitation movie, when the youngest member of an Amazon safari is kidnapped by South American cannibals, Laura/Emanuelle strips out of her clothes, pretends to be the cannibals' fertility goddess, and spirits the young kidnap victim away from her captors.What I liked about the scene (when I could ignore the condescending portrayal of the "cannibals") was that Emanuelle's nudity became an agent of her personal power. The cannibals were so in awe of her naked body, and the confidence with which she wielded it, that they surrendered their prisoner to her. In one of those rare moments in the movies, a woman's nakedness was not a mark of vulnerability or victimization -- but of strength. And the natives yielded to the erotic aura and power of her unadorned female form. In fact, the cannibals' awe of Laura Gemser's naked body mirrored my own.Also, immersing myself into the story, I got an electric charge out of the idea that a beautiful woman would deliberately drop trou and knowingly walk into such a dangerous situation. (The film's German title is "Nackt unter Kannibalen" -- literally "Naked Among the Cannibals.") And I got another charge out of the idea that she was able to escape that situation precisely because she was nude to begin with. Never underestimate the power of the naked female body.Gemser fans may laugh at comparing "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" to the films of Miklós Jancsó, the Hungarian art-film director ("Red Psalm," "Allegro Barbaro") who also frequently uses nudity as an element of power and resistance. But nakedness is so rarely portrayed as a symbol of strength in story-telling audiovisual media (no doubt because of nudity's taboo status in society) that thinking of similar scenes from films leaves the brain racked.This one scene from "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals," the single moment of mesmerism in an otherwise tawdry movie, stands as a tribute to Laura Gemser and her bountiful beauty. Jancsó aside, I wish there were more scenes like this in non-sexploitation cinema.

食人族をテーマに描いた映画？英語は、あまり得意ではないのですが、字幕を出してみたらおおよその内容は分かりました。良い点としては、無修正な所、脇役の女優さんから主人公まで丸見え。昔の映画にしては、頑張って作っていると思います（笑）次に気になった点です。食人シーンの所が暗すぎてよく分からない所。所々、古いから仕方ないのかもですが、ノイズが、走る一瞬だけ凄いオレンジ色のノイズがあります。やたらと絡むシーンが多い所、個人的には1回で良い（笑）あっちで絡みこっちで絡みとポルノを観ているようでした。逆にそういう系が好きな人でも、楽しめる。言うほど、グロくない。個人的に、痛いシーン？女性にとっては痛いシーンがある。ホステルの様なシーンがありますね。劇中のBGMが合っていなさすぎる（笑）なんか80年代の刑事ドラマの様なBGMもしくは、昼ドラの様な（笑）これは、これで面白かったけど。もう少し、安くなったら購入は有りかと思います。今はコンプライアンス的に、この様な映画は日本だと修正かけられるので、取っておくのもアリかなと思います。Blu-Rayですが、マシな画質？なのかもしれないです。リージョンは恐らく2？フリーかもしれませんが、僕が使っているリージョン2と記載されているポータブルプレヤーで観れました。PS4 あるならPS4でみれば観れると思います。長くなりましたが、最後に個人的に気に入ったのは、自慰のシーン短めですが2人ほどやる。主人公の女優さんは、個人的には普通でした、というより、脇役のシスターの方やイザベルさんの女優さんの方が好き（笑）後は、ハンターの嫁なんだか、なんだか分からないちょっと、年増の女優さん？少し、老けていた気がしましたが、身体が凄い綺麗でした。

Classic cannibal flick starring the always beautiful Laura Gemser as Emanuelle. Lots of sleaze, cheese and gore. Very good release from Severin Films. They did not skimp on the packaging. Definitely recommended!

エロ方面ではオケケ位しか見えんし、グロ方面も超安っぽいし、何かほんまにダラダラしてて、どうしようもなくつまんねぇC級映画。日本語も一切無いので、ほぼ早送り。ふた昔前位の映画やからしゃあねえか。高いお金出して円盤買う価値は、1mmも有りませんでした。ハァ～。

Great film. Looks and sounds fantastic.

Le distributeur mets rarement l'information du zonage de ses films. Donc on se retrouve avec un film qui ne fonctionne pas dans notre lecteur. Oui on peut se faire rembourser. Mais on paye les frais du retour et qui est souvent presque le prix du film. Fek je me retrouve avec pas de film et -17$.Belle arnaque !!!En date du 2 août. Toujours pas été remboursé et retourné depuis plus d'un mois....