FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Et Dieu Crea La Femme (engl. subt.) 

In front of me is the beautifully presented Criterion edition of Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman, next to it, the somewhat unadorned German DVD from Concord Film (which looks somewhat like how the film would have been marketed in 1956). At the time, Vadim's forgotten classic was mistakenly thought to be something like the precursor of the Nouvelle Vague. Presumably the Criterion Collection also remembers this judgement of the Godard generation. For us today, it should be clear that And God Created Woman is pure exploitation. A ridiculously thin plot, terrible acting performances, regressive portrayal of sex and women in general, racism, etc. But you get: 1. bright colours, 2. cinemascope and 3. Brigitte Bardot. And points 1 and 2 are negligible. From the fifth shot on, everyone knows what they are getting into: Bright colours, Cinemascope and Brigitte Bardot. It's easy to imagine the cinema scandal of 1956. Of course, staring at B.B. wouldn't be acceptable if there wasn't at least some semblance of a plot. That's exactly how Vadim organises his film. With a hint of plot. Bardot plays Juliette, an orphan from Saint Tropez. She lives in a foster family. So she lies naked behind a sheet on the beach. On the other side of the sheet, the silhouette of the real estate agent Eric (Curd Jürgens). As befits a good real estate agent, Eric has sinister plans for Juliette. Just like the sinister Antoine Tardieu, played by Christian Marquand. This scoundrel only wants to sleep with her and nothing else. Juliette, for her part, hides behind her foster father in a wheelchair - probably never again will disabled people be shown like this in the cinema, I hope. In an unconvincing mix of desperation and malice, Juliette marries Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), Antoine's brother. Michel is a sensitive guy with low self-esteem. And that's what it comes down to: Juliette's sexuality is too wild and uncontrollable to ever be tamed by Michel. There has to be a scandal, etc. Until then, there are as many shots of Bardot as possible. At one point she grumpily bites into a carrot. And God Created Woman may be considered less a narrative film than a peep show. If you were born in 1945, this may certainly still have its charms for you. But if you want to get a little more involved with the Brigitte Bardot phenomenon, And God Created Woman is indeed a MUST. The book "The Erotic in Film" by Lo Dugo is particularly enlightening. B.B. is described as the epitome of the child-woman. Naughty, not at all intelligent, beautiful like an object. She always gives the impression of being naked. That's what it's all about. But: B.B. never acts as a plaything of men. She chooses her men. Instinctively, not intellectually. She can therefore be considered a natural woman. Not consciously provocative like the vamps of the 20s, but not faithless like the American sex bombs of her time. Brigitte Bardot was all Lolita.