Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Interesteg What makes it different from others?

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

smatysia You have to be into silent films and their conventions to really enjoy this flick, even though it isn't truly silent. There are a very few lines of dialog (in German) but the vision and execution are very much of the silent era. I'm not into that, hence the low score. Some of it was pretty ludicrous to me, such as the symbolism of the horses, eventually focusing on the pregnant horse. And what is up with that Soviet-style sequence at the end? Was Machaty a Communist? It doesn't seem so, since the rest of the film has so much to do with individual wants and needs. It's hard for me to critique the acting, since silent film is basically a different art form, requiring a different skill set from actors than modern film, so I'll just let that go. And about Hedy Lamarr's nude scenes, well they are impressive for the times, even in Europe. Most of them are very long shots, where you can't really see anything, or for that matter, tell if it's really her. (I understand that it IS her) There is one reasonably close-in shot of her topless that for two seconds or so show her breasts to good effect. A lovely girl with lovely breasts. Nowadays, they would be known as "A" cups, but (take note, ladies) boobies do NOT have to be big to be beautiful.Overall you can probably pass on this one unless you want to see Hedy Lamarr's scenes mentioned above, or if you are a silent film buff. From other comments, some people think it is very good.

Qanqor This film contained both good and bad. Probably more bad than good. But let's start with the good: Yes, the nude scenes. Definitely fun. I mean, there's not enough there to be any kind of big deal by today's standard, but it really is something seeing a 1933 film with no-question-about-it-she's-definitely-completely-naked star. They don't flaunt the nudity but they don't shy away from it either. It was actually handled quite tastefully. And in generally I very much liked the whole theme of unabashed support for female sexuality. Very refreshing for 1933. And the scene in the car was pretty exciting.But the film had three major flaws. First, on the whole, the pacing is just *leaden*. This movie DRAGS. It is extremely self-indulgent in its wallowing in endless artistic shots and heavy-handed symbolism. There's about 30 minutes of story here crammed into an hour-and-a-half.Second, the whole practically-a-silent-movie thing, with just a couple sparse lines of dialog here and there, just didn't work for me. It made things just too *weird*. People just wouldn't behave that way, it ends up seeming *very* contrived. I mean, come on, a guy stumbles upon a beautiful woman naked in the woods; he ogles her, gives her back her dress and horse, gets slapped by her, goes to her aid when she falls and hurts herself, gives her a flower-- and through this whole thing says *not one single word*???? It was just too surreal. I defy anyone out there to tell me with a straight face they could meet a naked stranger in the woods and have an extended encounter with them without either of you saying a word.But the biggest problem for me was just the ways in which the story just didn't make sense. Here is a list of questions I'm *still* groping with after seeing the complete film:1) Why on *earth* did she marry Mr. Disinterested in the first place? She HAD to have known what he was like before she married him!2) Why on *earth* did *he* marry *her*? He carries her over the threshold and then has ZERO interest in her whatsoever. And I don't just mean sexual interest. He utterly and completely ignores her.3) Given his COMPLETE indifference toward her when she's his wife, why the sudden all-consuming interest in her once she leaves him? I mean, he had no time to even look up from his newspaper when he was with her, but once she's gone, he's so distraught he *kills* himself? What on *earth* is up with that????4) After the suicide, why does Mr. Very-Interested suddenly decide 'Ok, let's go to the train station!' Huh????5) Why, why, why, why, why does she *leave* him at the train station!?!? This more than anything else made ZERO sense to me, and that one point COMPLETELY ruins the film for me. She FINALLY found someone who made her happy (and not just sexually happy either. Just look at her face when she meets him there at the inn, and they're just dancing and enjoying being together. These two definitely have feelings for each other beyond just hormones. Their joy at being together is complete), and, *boom*, for no apparent reason, she just leaves him. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY? As Bill Cosby would say, "That's brain damage!"6) What the HELL is up with the last scene??? Suddenly for no reason this turns into some kind of Happy Worker's Paradise quasi-soviet film???7) And then the final shots: HUH???? I don't even understand what it was *trying* to portray. Was the guy fantasizing that maybe she had his kid, or did she really have a child? Or was the little boy that he was looking at actually the same child and this is now years later? Did he somehow come into custody of the child? Or did he actually somehow end up getting back together with her and they're both raising the child? I DON'T GET IT AT ALL!!!I didn't even know how to grade this film. No movie that leaves me with "I DON'T GET IT AT ALL!!!" at the end can possibly get a good grade from me. On the other hand, no movie that looks at sex without either snickering or moralizing, but instead portrays it as a beautiful, healthy, natural thing, no such movie can get too bad a grade from me. So I cut it right in the middle with the 5-star vote. An odd film. I'm glad I saw it, but truthfully I have little desire to ever see it again.

L. Denis Brown I cannot comment on this film without discussing its significance to me personally. As a child bad health prevented me from ever going to a cinema. I first encountered movies at the end of WWII through Roger Manvilles splendid Penguin book "Film", which brought me so much pleasure as my health began to improve that I wish I could buy another copy to re-read today. My introduction to many classics films such as The Battleship Potemkin, Drifters (Grierson's magnificent documentary), Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and Ecstasy; came first through this book and later at my University Art-house cinema. Ecstasy had incurred the wrath of the Vatican, for condoning Eva's desertion of Emil, her subsequent divorce, and the brief swim she took in the buff, but Roger Manville ignored these trivial matters and discussed the film as a triumphant, outstandingly beautiful, visual paean to love - a view echoed by many IMDb users. A very lonely young man, when I saw it, I willingly concurred. No further opportunity to see Ecstasy arose until the introduction of home videos - by then it had become a treasured memory not to be disturbed. Quite recently I finally added Ecstasy to my home video collection and found this assessment very superficial. Ecstasy is much more of a parable on the continuity of human existence, against which individual lives are insignificant - perhaps a tribute to what Bernard Shaw in his aggressively agnostic writings used to term 'The Lifeforce'. Ecstasy portrays a young bride marrying a middle aged man whose sex urge is no longer strong. Disappointed, she returns home and divorces him. Soon after she experiences a strong mutual attraction to a young virile man she meets whilst out horse riding. She makes love for the first time and it is an overwhelming experience. Her former husband cannot face rejection and gives the young man a lift in his car intending that a passing train will kill them both on a level crossing. But the train stops in time and the apparently ill driver is taken to recuperate at a nearby hotel where he later commits suicide by shooting himself. After these exciting climacteric sequences, a bland, predictable and almost inevitable ending emphasises that whilst individual human lives exhibit both joy and tragedy, collectively life continues to carry us all forward in its stream and only through contributing to this stream can we be truly happy. This story is trite, the acting is no more than adequate; and normally such a film would have disappeared into the garbage, as did most of its contemporaries, long ago. What has given Ecstasy its classic status is exceptional cinematography, a continuous lyrical score and very careful loving direction, coupled with something fortuitous but in cinematographic terms very important - it appeared just after the introduction of sound and was probably planned as a silent film. It is sub-titled and its Director has exploited the impact of brief verbal sequences accompanying some sub-titles, and occasionally breaking into the score which so lovingly carries the film forward. This makes it not only almost unique but extremely rewarding to watch. The parable in the tale is stressed continuously but so subtly that only when reflecting after viewing does one become fully aware of it. For example, the names - Eva and Adam; the obsessive behavior of Emil on his wedding night which shows that triviata have become the most important thing in his life and predicate his eventual suicide since he has no adequate purpose to sustain him; the ongoing series of beautiful sequences showing erotic imagery (a bee pollinating a flower, a key entering a lock, a breaking necklace during Eva's virginal lovemaking sequence with Adam, etc.); and the final post-suicide sequences which could have been filmed in many different ways but serve to extol the importance to individuals of performing some type of work that contributes positively to Society, as well as of creating new life to sustain this society after we ourselves pass on. As a 1933 film I would rate this at 9 - even comparing it with contemporary works I would not reduce this below 8. For me the film will always remain a "must see", (although you may feel that my background remarks above indicate some bias in this judgment). Unfortunately in North America contemporary assessments of this film have been distorted by the extreme 1930's reaction to Hedy Kiesler's very brief and relatively unimportant nude scene which she had difficulty living down in Hollywood (some critics, who have clearly not seen such classic films as Hypocrites, Hula, Back to God's Country, Bird of Paradise or some of the early works of D.W. Griffiths and C.B. deMille, have even erroneously referred to this as the first appearance of a nude actress in a feature film). This scene was probably part of the original novel, and the film would have been very little different if the Director had chosen to rewrite it.Two further thoughts; firstly this is a Czech film, released there in 1933. Its final message about hard work generating positive benefits for society must have seemed very superficial to its viewers when a few years later their country became the first victim of Nazi oppression and was virtually destroyed for at least two generations (I do not remember these sequences being screened just after the war when I first saw this film - were they removed from the copy I saw then?). Secondly for me its main message today is that things of real beauty are often very transitory even though their memory may stay with one for a lifetime. We should all be thankful that today some of them can be captured on camera and viewed again at our convenience.

MartinHafer This movie really shows its age. The print I saw was terrible due to age, but it is possible that there are better prints out there. However, this was not the major problem with the movie. The problem was that although the film was made in 1933, it was essentially a silent film with only the barest of dialog scattered (only a few sentences) in the film in the most amateur fashion. Sometimes the characters' backs were turned or they were talking with their hands over their faces--all in a pathetic attempt to obscure their lips and "cleaverly" (?) hide the fact that the film was dubbed. Well, it's true that this Czech film would need to be dubbed into many languages but to do it this way was really stupid and obvious. It just looked cheap.Overall, the film looked low budget and silly. It's really a shame though, because there was a grain of a good story--a young woman who marries an older man who is either gay and/or has no interest in women. But in the 21st century, few people would really be willing to sit through this archaic mess. EVEN with a few glimpses of the naked (and somewhat chunky) Hedy Lamarr, it isn't worth all the fuss that accompanied the film when it debuted. Even by 1933 standards, this film was a poorly made dud. About the only interesting thing about the film is to see how different Lamarr looked in 1933 compared with the glamorous image Hollywood created when she came to America--she looks like 2 completely different people.It's such an incomplete looking and technically inferior film, I don't see how it has gotten such rave reviews. For technical problems alone, the movie can't rate a 10 or anything near it.