Delta of Venus

Although certainly not the greatest movie ever made, Delta of Venus manages to convince with it's Parisian setting and a feeling of revelry in the face of stark reality. Audie England is rather fetching as the ingenue American writer becoming embroiled in the Parisian milieu of sex, drugs and personal drama, played with almost frantic intensity before the creeping tide of Nazism. Based on the writings of Anais Nin, Delta of Venus contains some extremely erotic scenes and is well worth a look.

It looks like a 90 minute perfume ad. Since I produce commercials for a living I know one when I see one. Stylish if not a little sleepish. Intense at times and nonsense most of the times. If you like 9 1/2 weeks, Wild Orchid and the like then you will love this one (all of these movies are pretty much the same story line, dialog etc...) other wise watch "The Tango Lesson" also set in Paris the real Paris not Prague dressed up as in this movie. The Tango Lesson is more insightful intelligent just as stylish and what this movie could have been. I still like this movie it gives me ideas for my next commercial project.

I found this movie to be one of Zalman King's best! I haven't seen a Zalman King movie I haven't liked, but I'd definitely have to say that, so far, this one takes the cake! I've read the book...the anthology of short stories from which King melded and formed the single story that was to become "Delta of Venus" the movie. He did an absolutely wonderful job! Set in Paris during a turbulent time, decadence was at one of it's finest points. We have Audie Englund, beautiful and charming and shy all at once. Her character is a writer at a time when women writers were starting to be more open and who were keeping their own names. She wants to write, and indeed NEEDS to write for money. She feels she is passionate and only when her lover is "away" does she begin to learn what passion is and how to write about it. Her "employer" whom she never meets, only writes for, makes demands on her writing. She is to go farther and farther into the world of erotica. She is told to go beyond the idea of "love" and romance, but to strive for decadence and the bizarre. She goes to the very edges of sexuality to write the perfect erotic story to please the person paying her bills. And it is while she is on the edge of decadence that she discovers her own sexuality and how far she can go herself towards pleasure and testing the limits. The whole movie is beautiful from beginning to end. It is always erotic and never tasteless or meaningless. It offers insight into a time when open sexuality was beginning to flourish again. It shows us a world where sexuality was encouraged, not frowned upon. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, yearning to feel what the characters did. Yearning to have the feelings that the characters did. In a society as prudish as this one, it is but a dream to think that I could ever live in a world as portrayed in this movie. The actors and actresses all played their parts well and with a passion and dedication that makes you believe that they are indeed the people they are pretending to be. I never once said, "Oh, Julia Roberts could have done a better job" or "Leonardo di Caprio is much sexier than him." On the contrary, these other actors would have made the movie seem to be a movie rather than a snippet of real life with real people. Don't get me wrong; the two I mentioned are very accomplished actors. But you know when they are acting, and in many other of their movies, you could say that they are "real" in the parts they play as I've said about the ones in "Delta of Venus"...but Zalman King could not have picked a finer cast for these characters. If and when my own erotic stories get published, should the desire for them to be made into movies ever arise, then I only hope that it will be Zalman King behind the camera. I only hope that what I've written will be turned into a wonderful movie that only the magic of this director can create.