‘Happening’ Director Audrey Diwan on her Erotic Drama ‘Emmanuelle’

Opening up this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival, Audrey Diwan’s “Emmanuelle” marks an unexpected follow-up to her Golden Lion winner “Happening” – at least on paper, anyway.

If anything, the filmmaker followed a similar line, using a literary adaptation to emphasize sensorial experience, in this case the evasive quest for physical pleasure. “The project was one of renewal,” Diwan tells Variety. “Reviving sensations then sharing them with the audience.”

Updating the 1967 novel from Emmanuelle Arsan, the latest version imagines a thirtysomething Emmanuelle (Noemie Merlant) as a kind of leisure quality control inspector, sent to stress test a Hong Kong luxury hotel run by Naomi Watts and haunted by a mysterious guest played by Will Sharpe.

And though centered on pleasure, the film often sees those needs unmet, focusing as much on frustration as on elation. “Pleasure, and the pursuit thereof, should remain a mystery,” says Diwan. “So I meant to explore the subject from my perspective without giving any universal answer. As every woman knows, pleasure comes with a very personal definition.”

How did you decide on this project to follow-up “Happening?”

On a very personal level, I’m wary of comfort. My creative drive runs on passion and fear – things that push me to devote three years to a project. So I wasn’t immediately convinced when my producers proposed “Emmanuelle.” I hadn’t seen the original film – at least, not in its entirety – but I found the source novel fascinating. Two-thirds of the way through, the narrative stops to give way to a near-100 page conversation about the nature of desire. That got me thinking: I wondered if eroticism could still be a relevant narrative engine, and asked how these themes from 1967 might still resonate. Could these questions be translated into contemporary cinematic language?

How so?

Eroticism is fundamentally about the frame – about the tension between what you see and what you don’t. Back in the 70s, the desire was to show more, which is what made the first film so successful. Except, I felt what stayed hidden was more interesting – I thought to push that tension by asking the viewer to engage actively with the film and to collaborate with the story. But even that wasn’t enough to justify the commitment, not until I thought of this idea of a woman who can no longer experience pleasure going on a journey to recover it. [And after “Happening,”] I said to myself, if I can depict pain, maybe I could do the same for pleasure.

How did you make this world your own?

The film is more about a relationship with the world than just a relationship with the body. By taking “Emmanuelle” and using it as a vessel—setting aside previous portrayals—I aimed to present a contemporary view, focusing not on a young ingénue but on a 35-year-old professional and building from there. That kind of woman faces different set of expectations, a social pressure to become her ‘best self’ by taking advantage of everything, seeking new sights or experiences that ultimately tell the same story. You must enjoy yourself and you must achieve – and to succeed you must perform that enjoyment. That becomes quite exhausting, so [co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski and I] imagined a process letting go, opening a window, taking a deep breath, and shedding those dictates.  

Why set the film within a luxury hotel?

A luxury hotel is a dizzying place, as we realized while filming. The smell, the music, everything is eternal and unchanging. If something moves, it returns to its original place the next day. There’s a kind of vertigo in this eternal present—a seductive but sterile atmosphere. Chaos is rare, and even when it occurs, it’s quickly smoothed over. Emmanuelle herself becomes an instrument of this world. She works in quality control, ensuring that guests’ experiences are as pleasurable as possible. But she knows that these experiences are artificial, part of a décor.

Both the setting and the presence of Will Sharpe call to mind “The White Lotus.”

Yes, it’s funny how many films and shows explore this theme. I can’t speak for others, but “The White Lotus” certainly plays with the same idea of appearances and individuality, exploring what lies beneath the surface. The hotel environment creates social distance, and everyone wears a kind of armor. There’s a distinction between the public self and what happens behind closed doors, while the place tells a story of modern loneliness. We encounter people, but don’t truly meet them. The hotel promises something exotic, but in a way that doesn’t involve truly engage with the world.

Many of the film’s intimate scenes find Emmanuelle alone. Why focus on a more onanistic form of expression?

That’s also a reflection of this empty relationship with the world. People long to rebuild connections, because to find real pleasure you must first leave your solitary bubble and take real interest in others. In the end, I wanted the film to explore how artificial pleasure can feel stifling. At some point, you want to break free from the decor, to leave the hotel where every interaction is codified and written in advance, a place with such little imagination that there’s no room for fantasy. That’s the moment I wanted to highlight—the desire to escape and breathe after feeling confined.

The film is not a direct feminist revision — as the French press has oddly implied — nor is it bluntly carnal.

French journalists often describe any questioning of female pleasure as feminist. In fact, the 1970s “Emmanuelle” was described as feminist for exactly the same reason! Obviously, the name “Emmanuelle” has strong connotations, and those who already know my work come in with certain expectations, but I didn’t want to make a film that simply overturned previous codes. That felt a bit simplistic, and would have been such a limiting experience.

I also didn’t want to limit the film’s eroticism to a few sex scenes. Then I’d really feel like I was making a bad sports movie, you know? Eroticism, for me, is an atmosphere. It’s about filling the frame with surprise and desire. I rewatched Jean Eustache’s “The Mother and the Whore” when writing and realized how erotic dialogue can be. Even something as simple as a storm, when it’s sensorial and insinuates itself into a place that claims to be perfect, can provoke those sensations.

Given the setting and the narrative of prolonged flirtation, a certain Wong Kar-wai comparison comes to mind.

That’s for sure. Whenever we ask people to name an erotic film, “In the Mood for Love” comes up a lot, whereas it’s about people bumping into one another and brushing up against each other in corridors. And I love that definition of eroticism! Besides, when you’re in Hong Kong, you simply cannot fight that reference.

In fact, for a very long time, I couldn’t get to Hong Kong because Covid restrictions. So I scouted a hotel on the Internet, and decided that’s exactly where I wanted to shoot. And then, once I could finally do some in person scouting, I saw 40 more places, but stuck with one I discovered online. And one day, I met the hotel’s decorator, and he told me that he had decorated the hotel with “In the Mood for Love” in mind. Somehow, the influence was unavoidable, and we didn’t try to avoid it.

How did you approach the film’s more intimate moments?

We’re working on something that can’t be seen. The most sincere, uncontrollable, and difficult-to-show physical tic is the orgasm. And yet, this female orgasm is very often represented — and Noémie and I spoke of this a lot — in ways that wouldn’t emerge from a woman who had actually experienced a real moment of pleasure. Having to represent this moment is very complicated, especially because, as an actress, Noémie would be simulating something that couldn’t resemble a fake orgasm.

We sought to get away from previous representations, while making something that was false ring true, and the process was exhausting. We shot take after take all night long, without ever feeling like we’d gotten to the right place. And then, with exhaustion came inspiration. Noémie noticed her body going slack, and she used that. With fatigue, at some point, something happens that can’t be measured or prepared—a sigh and a smile.

How did you and Merlant engage the subject?

We discussed the culture of the female body in images, as women are often taught to present themselves for the gaze. In a way, this involves making a spectacle of the body, and we tried to work against this idea. Noémie seeks to explore the character’s sensations, emotions, and internal experiences rather than displaying her own. With Laurent Tanguy, the cinematographer, we aimed to capture the image without the camera becoming intrusive. The goal was to reverse the traditional dynamic between the camera and the actress, allowing the actress to explore and research her body while the camera questions and interacts with her.

Does working with an actor who also directs affect your on-set relationship?

Yes, it does. In fact, both Noémie and Will have directing experience, so we all had a very interesting collaboration, with many conversations about framing. The two of them intuitively understood both sides of the camera, and they shared their gaze with mine. It was a fascinating exercise. 

Noémie began her career as a model, so she really understands the frame and her body within it, and is deeply interested in the subject, as reflected in her own film, “The Balconettes.”  Focusing on these questions liberated her; she’s very free because she knows exactly how she wants to portray the body.

Will is Anglo-Japanese, and he wanted to his work on his Japanese roots here. He’s just as thoughtful about representation. My casting director hinted that we would get along, but wouldn’t say anything more. So then when I finally met him, he was so excited to share that he found himself home with this kids on New Year’s Eve, and decided to watch “Happening” once the clock struck midnight. He said it was a sign that he started the year thinking about these questions!