User Reviews

This is the debut of David Hamilton, a well known photographer from the seventies. Contrary to the other commentator I found this a marvelous film, but you have to look at it from a certain perspective. If you are looking for a good script, for profundity of conversation, for strong acting, this film will not appeal to you. But if you approach it like a Monnet painting, Debussy music or a Marcel Proust novel, you might just love it. It's the kind of movie that pays off to those who love lingering about in a small French village over summer without too much hassle. Appreciate it like the best of impressionist art, just to enjoy its simple and straight forward beauty, and you will be drawn into a wonderful world, longing to live amidst flowers, fresh life, warm summers in the countryside, swimming in the sea, having your first love etc...

I remember vaguely having heard the music of this film when I was a child, a wonderful score composed by Francis Lai. After waiting so many years to watch this movie, I was quite disappointed; the director (photographer David Hamilton) was able to create a dream-like atmosphere for the film, but that's about it. "Bilitis" is an almost plot less, erotic feature about a teenage girl who is confused about her sexuality (she is attracted to both girls and boys). Patty D'Arbanville plays the main role with a certain charm and naivety, but the rest of the characters are completely flat and uninteresting. Nevertheless, there is an acute sense of romance and nostalgic longing in this movie, plus the unforgettable soundtrack and fine cinematography (reminded me of impressionist paintings...) Rating: 5/10

It's a little sad to read the reviews by people who've only watched a portion of this film. Yes, Bilitis starts out like the dopiest male horndog's perspective of the world: an all girl's school where every student is a model-tier beauty, and they all caress each other, giggle as they undress and go skinny-dipping as a class. But there's a lot more going on here. It's all gorgeously shot, with David Hamilton's signature, gauzy diffused style, and Francis Lai's soundtrack is sweet. The director is able to elicit natural, conversational performances from most of the cast (sorry, Gilles Kohler). Still, content-wise, I can't deny that it all plays out like empty-headed softcore porn.

For a while, anyway. You'll be rewarded for sticking around. Maybe a third of the way through, they virtually dispense with the sex and nudity... the story's still all about hooking up, and there's plenty of kissing and suggestive embracing. But the R-rated stuff nearly disappears, and whatever's left is no longer gratuitous.

Instead, the film practically turns into an Eric Rohmer film: a charming story of a young girl who goes around town trying to find a suitable match for an older woman, only to get her heart broken in the process. It has a very gentle humor to it (it gets funnier and funnier every time Nikias's two friends wander back into shot), and that combined with the pictorial settings and languid lifestyles depicted - the titular Bilitis is even staying with an older couple while on holiday from school, and getting caught up in the bad examples they set - calls to mind Pauline At the Beach and Claire's Knee. The characters blossom from their centerfold origins into intriguing, sympathetic humans, a development I credit to screenwriter Catherine Breillat. I'm sure the 19th century source material has something to do with it, too; but there are echoes of her work throughout this movie, and in all the best moments. The critical study of males' attritional style of seduction, for example, feels like a direct precursor to her masterclass on the subject in A ma soeur. But just generally having a strong female voice guiding what is ostensibly meant to be a very personal, first person experience of a female character discovering her womanhood is something usually sorely absent in Hamilton's films (which is felt doubly now, given what came out later in his life, casting a dark shadow over everything he's ever done) or other "erotic" films of this era.

I put "erotic" in quotes there, because Breillat has said in interview that she doesn't see the film as erotic and didn't intend it to be. There's definitely some push-pull here, and the final film probably falls more safely into the category of Erotica than the script she delivered. But while that tension results in the aforementioned male gaze-y flaws of the first act (I'd add an extra star or two if they'd just given the first act a quick rewrite), it's also an asset: a Hamilton film with more depth and truth than he usually finds, and a softer, less combative work than we're used to from Breillat. Bilitis isn't likely to be anybody's favorite film, but it's more than the technically adept bit of titillation you probably bought the ticket for. The characters can be surprising, and you wind up caring about them, worrying for how they'll end up to a greater degree than most straight-forward Hollywood dramas are able to manage.

I've seen other negative reactions - again, quite understandable after 2016 - often describing this film as being for Hamilton fans only. And certainly if you're a die-hard devotee, sure, you need this in your collection just by virtue of his name being on it. And it does have all his signature traits. It looks like his photographs come alive. But I'd actually say almost the opposite: this isn't for Hamilton fans. I think a lot of the disappointment comes from guys looking for a little naughty entertainment (just look at the reviews complaining about the soft focus nudity, brevity of the sex scenes or the actresses' bust sizes) and instead stumbling on what is, at least at points, an indictment of men imposing their sexual desires onto young girls... which is - whoops! Hamilton, his fans and almost everyone else in this market.

I think I'd say instead that this is a film for Breillat fans only. And even then, it's not exactly her greatest literary achievement. But it's probably the only one with a warm and inviting quality. Hamilton's elegant style coupled with her singular understanding of human relationships is at least worth staying to the end for.

One must understand this film in the light of its background. In the 1970s the success of the sexual revolution in Europe had made things possible in mainstream film that perhaps would be frowned at today. David Hamilton was a photographer that made a name for himself with hyper-romantic images of mostly young teens. He developed a technique that involved copious amounts of vaseline on the lens to create a unique blurred effect. Out of this success the desire was born to translate his trademark style to film.

As basis for the film an older story about an innocent young girl discovering and exploring her sexuality was used, but the storyline is largely inconsequential since it merely serves as a framework for Hamilton's soft focus tableaux. The result is that the film feels a bit like pink cotton candy: overly sweet and insubstantial. That it still remains palatable is due to just the pretty images and the excellent musical score by Francis Lai.

When it was released this film caused a sensation. I watched it and was thrilled. Beautiful, usually young, naked women filmed in the classy style we knew so well from director Hamiltons photography. His photographs never become porn and the same is true for this movie. Today I saw it again and was bitterly disappointed. The soft core in extremely slow paced scenes, all filmed with some Vaseline on the lenses, actually is all there is. There is no real story, the characters remain beautiful and beautifully filmed bodies, but they are not real creatures with a soul. Actually nothing happens. It is like Hamilton is photographing using moving pictures rather than stills. And this gets so boring after a while. I even didn't watch the whole thing the second time, for I fell vast asleep. That is all that remains of this masterpiece: it is a very good sleeping pill. And you will never become addicted to it!

Back then 7 out of 10, now 3 out of 10

It is not generally my practice to review movies that I dislike to any great degree. However, one or two times a year, I temporarily set aside my rule to only comment on things I like to give a word of warning. I find it more enjoyable to comment on something I like and boost it than I do shooting at bad movies. But some "movies" cry out for the razor.

Bilitis is one of them. The cinematography isn't the only aspect that is blurry and out of focus here. An almost indiscernible plot (certainly incoherent, if there even is one) bad acting, cheesy script and awful pacing. Those are its major problems.

Understand, I firmly believe that not all movies are created equal and films should be judged according to their category. It is not reasonable to judge, say, Beach Blanket Bingo against Gone With the Wind. I judge Bilitis against other movies in its weight class. Measured against movies like Emmanuelle or Secrets of a Chambermaid, it comes off very badly indeed. Even eye-candy has to be entertaining and Bilitis most definitely is not.

It's dreadful, but ...

Cat Stevens fans are given the opportunity to see the woman who inspired the lovely song "Lady D'Arbanville" on his album "Mona Bone Jakon", before Cat turned into a fatwa-supporting religious zealot.

Bilitis (Patti d'Arbanville) attends an all-girl school that is about to break for summer... Once on vacation, Bilitis comes to hold with her developing sexuality and strikes up a romantic liaison with a local boy… A secondary romance concerns Bilitis' female guardian and her new husband…

The treatment of sensuality is soft and beautiful, which is in keeping with Hamilton's style of photography… At the beginning of the film, we see the sweet, sensual bodies of the schoolgirls exuberantly bathing in a mountain lake…

When Bilitis is finally seduced, it is exaggerated romance, heavily diffused, implying rather than showing their coupling… The lovemaking between the married couple is equally stylized, but more steamy

Wish I'd seen this 33 years ago when it came out. At the time I was a college student studying photography and I rather liked the work of David Hamilton and even tried to emulate his soft focus look.

Today it all just looks like a poor excuse for some titillation. I'm not so interested in school girls any more. It's just soft porn masquerading as art. It makes me wonder what Hamilton was up to at the time. Was he trying to recapture an idealised youth?

In all honesty I must confess to only having the patience to watch about 45 minutes of it. I'd never seen it but it had been tagged in my mind as something to make time for if I ever got the opportunity. It is horribly sweetly sickly soft porn. God what a fool I was at 17!

Those of you familiar with David Hamilton as a photographer will (at least) make sense of his visual treatment in Bilitis. Very lush and sensual, with a voyeuristic appeal: we are drawn in to great visuals of the young Ms. D'Arbanville getting undressed, washing, getting cozy with another female friend in bed, and becoming a voyeur herself! But Hamilton should have gone a bit further with the love scenes and erotic visuals; we are only treated to a nibble of his talent. If you are turned-on by girl-girl and lolita themes, then you will probably enjoy Bilitis. Otherwise, just watch it for the few visual delights... the story is a snoozer.

I was so let down by this film. The tag line was something like 'The story of a girls sexual awakening'. You can only imagine how disappointed I was. I was seventeen at the time and I took my girlfriend to see it. I thought we were going to see a sexy movie that would leave my girlfriend gagging for it. Sadly that was not the case. I guess we just weren't ready for a deep and meaningful movie that required an element of sophistication that we just didn't possess at the time. I'm not so sure I possess it now, and I have long since parted company with that particular girlfriend (pity really... my first love). We left the cinema half way through the film, my friend, who should have known better, stayed for the whole thing. I still got the required result with my girlfriend, the film just didn't help much. It would be interesting to see it again so that I can make a more informed critique, though I feel the experience has left me scarred for life.

The first Time i saw "Bilitis" in a Cinema, fascination took over the wonderful Images of David Hamilton. I think i went 6 or 7 times to watch "Bilitis" in the Cinema when it came out. I always wanted to buy the Film but couldn't get it and after many years of waiting i finally found a VHS-Cassette on a Fleamarket. My Luck: Great condition.

Unfortunately this Movie is often listed as a "Adult"-Movie, but it's not and to my opinion the most misunderstood Movie in it's Genre. This Film shows very deeply the Emotions from a Female point of view, with all up's and down's.

"Bilitis" is one of these rare Movies that must be watched more than once to really get all the fine Details in the Images and Story. Sure, it contains a lot Erotic Moments but in a very beautiful and tasteful manner, unseen before.

For me a "must have" in a Movie Collection and this is why i rate this Movie as "Excelent".

Michel Bourreau, France

Easy going move. Watchable if nothing much to do. A good coming of age story which could have been filmed in a more subtle way to show a teenage girls emotions but ultimately failed to deliver. Direction & cinematography was good but there's a pretentious display of being too artistic.

Sometimes my quest to see every notorious European sex film from the 70's leads me very far afield--and sometimes it just leads to a lot of boredom. I saw this film back-to-back with Catherine Breillat's directorial debut "Un Vrai Jeune Fille" (Breillat was co-writer of this film as well). Both are very pretentious, but while "Jeune Fille" is genuinely disturbing yet also realistic in a strange way, this film is simply dull and rarely rises above the most generic level of male fantasy. The director David Hamilton, depending on who you ask, is either a brilliant photographer or an incorrigible pervert. His main subject of interest was capturing adolescent and post-adolescent females at their most nubile. He's definitely in hog heaven at the beginning of this film which is set at a French girls' school the protagonist is attending. This apparently is a VERY liberal school where the students freely skinny-dip, openly engage in lesbian frolics, and even put on Greek plays for their families wearing nearly diaphanous togas that barely cover their lissome bodies. Naturally, ALL these girls are model beautiful. It's probably best not to wonder how old some of them were at the time, but the lead, American actress Patty D'Arbanville, was actually in her mid-20's, although she looks younger.

As questionable as the first half hour may be though, it certainly achieves it effect (it's surpassed only by the "Barthory" section of Walerian Borowzyx's "Immoral Tales" in its sheer gratuitous display of nubile skin). It's really the second hour that's the problem. D'Arbanville's character "Bilitis" goes to stay with her ridiculously young female "guardian" (Mona Christensen) and the latter's unfaithful, brutish husband. "Bilitis" falls in love with the (slightly)older woman and they have a long lesbian sex scene. The guardian spurns her afterwards, but "Bilitis", taking it like a trooper, decides to try to personally "find a man" for her after her husband walks out. "Bilitis" also has a would-be beau herself, a young photographer (just like the director, hmmm). Respected actor Mathieu Carriere also shows up as one would-be suitor for the "older" woman, but I THINK he's supposed to be gay. The film ends with EVERYONE left pretty unhappy, which is really the only place the downbeat influence of Breillat shows through the soft-focus schmaltz of Hamilton.

Although he is the polar opposites in his taste in women (Hamilton's actresses rarely have enough fat on their young bodies to make for more than a B-cup), David Hamilton is a lot like "bosomaniac" American director Russ Meyer in a way. No heterosexual male can honestly say he is turned off by bountiful breasts OR nubile 18-year-old bodies, but if you don't happen to share either of these director's obsessive personal fetishes, their work gets kind of tedious after awhile. This movie would have been vastly improved , for instance, if the guardian had been played by a voluptuous older woman instead of another young nymph like Christensen. (It's not that I really advocate inter-generational lesbian sex, but if you're gonna do it, do it right).

I'd definitely recommend this for David Hamilton fans, but otherwise, ehhhhh.

It's hard to know what to say about a movie called "Bilitis". It was filmed by a photographer who is famous for his soft-focus pictures of adolescent girls who are usually naked, and that's basically what the movie gives us, except he uses a film camera to capture them this time.

The movie starts promisingly with copious nudity and suggestions of lesbianism, but when its plot starts to come to the fore it gets in the way and ruins our fun. I don't even know what the movie was supposed to be about. I got that the titular Bilitis is a schoolgirl in a boarding school where the girls skinny dip and slip into each other's beds. Bilitis has an aunt, who is romantically involved with some guy, and she may also pursue a romance with a local boy, but I don't remember seeing that, or him.

Another problem is that the actresses (and actors) aren't really that great looking. Patti D'Arbanville, who plays Bilitis, is really nothing special to look at, and nor are any of the other people on screen. The actors don't really make an impression with their looks, and it is sometimes hard to tell them apart.

This, however, might just be down to the "soft-focus" photography, which would probably give you a migraine if you looked at it for too long.

I remember I watched this movie when it 1st came out - 1977

I was only a kid then!!! The story and how it was filmed was like a 'mystery' to me until a few years following that, I was sent to a boarding school in England.

But that wasn't the end - I was fasinated that I was going to experience the life of Bilitis - but it happened it was nothing like it - and the memory of watching Bilitis remains as mystery to me until today!

The music of the original soundtrack - till today - fresh and inviting to all ages.

This is an sensuous film with beautiful teenaged girls lovingly filmed undressing, and then playing, in a lake.

In fact an edited version of 30 minutes would make my favourite film of all time. The pity is the other 60 minutes.

My critique can be broken up into great, mediocre and disappointing.

Great

Without a doubt this film has the most erotic and sensous scenes I have ever scene. Specifically:

Full frontal nudity of teenaged girls undressing, and then playing, in the lake;

Dormitory scenes with Bilitis and her bestfriend;

Semi-nude of love scenes between Melissa [Mona Kristensen]and Bilitis [Patti D'Arbanville];

Bilitis having Melissa help undress Bilitis after a sea-side swim; and

Theatrical performance with girls in see-through costumes.

Good

The tension between Melissa and her husband, Pierre [Gilles Kohler];

The scenes of pre-war semi-rural France;

The costume recreations-especially with the teenaged girls' school clothing.

Disappointing

The lead male, Lucas [Bernard Giraudeau], who was a weak male-chauvinist. Maybe as this was a girls' boarding school there was a shortage of attractive boys/men around, and so they would have fantasised about any youngish new man who appeared on the scene.

It would have been better if Bilitis and Pierre were attracted to one another as that that would have created sexual tension. He was the only male character that I liked, yet he only appeared in a few scenes.

If not tension between Bilitis and Pierre , then between Pierre and the girl he was taking to the equestrian event in Monaco.

Patti D'urbanville at 26-27 playing a 16-17 year old. Although the use of a substitute teenaged figure for the sensuous scenes were used.

Overall

I loved it.

Yesterday I watched Bilitis again, with 2023 eyes. I saw it when it was released and could remember it quite well so there were no surprises. I liked it then, I love it now.

If Bilitis was released today it would be crushed by the critics, by the press and by the virtue signaling lynch mob of the social media. Not because of the nude and mildly erotic love scenes with teen girls but because it doesn't tick the obligatory checkboxes of today's films. Bilitis gives us a pure and sweet lack of diversity. All the girls are pretty and thin. There isn't a single ugly one. Not a single fat one. Not a single BLM one. Not a single (choose your minority) one. Nothing was done to portrait the fake reality current films shove. As someone once said, we were happy but didn't know it.

Francis Lai's soundtrack is magnificent, fits the images perfectly. It's almost classic. There is no rap/hiphop/funk or other current offensive noise we hear today.

Even if you don't appreciate David Hamilton's fogged lens signature style isn't possible to deny the great composition of the takes. The stills showed are masterpieces.

And yet again it was a pleasure to watch.

We were happy and didn't know it...

The plot may not be much as it is somewhat incoherent however if you appreciate watching the sexual awakening and exploits of lovely young girls then this is for you.

Patty D'Arbanvile is lovely to look at for such a young girl.

A masterpiece copy of French style making movie but... with too much soft focus makes it self indulgent.

This movie is typical pf the trend at that time in 70s of coming of age movies and books like Blue Lagoon and others .

Its more a girls movie but besides too much soft focus, it is well made for a movie of that time. Like I said in the 70s thos was the trent for art movies.

This 1977 colored version is the same film made in France in 1959. The original is long out of print & is not listed. I can remember vividly seeing this movie at 16 Y.O. & enjoying it immensely. The music is wonderful, the plot is ok but nothing fabulous. The French actresses are very sexy & I rate this movie as to being very sensual.

I must have seen this movie on some early subscription service like ON TV or Spectravision, before super explicit pay services or video. I had to have been 18, and the fact that it was in french made it even more exotic. All i remembered all these years was the name of the actresss. It's how I located the title, so i must have fallen in love with Patti D'Arbanville around this time. Maybe Don Johnson did too.