Immoral Tales

Contes immoraux

Trailer

Directed by Walerian Borowczyk

France, Hungary, 1973

Drama, History, LGBT+

125
French
Portuguese & 9 more

Synopsis

The film is split into four erotic themed stories: The Tide, Philosopher Thérèse, Countess Báthory and Lucrezia Borgia, which respectively involve the loss of virginity, masturbation, bloodlust and incest.

Our take

Borowczyk’s first sin? By some critical accounts, this film is when Boro went too far with his soft-core, erotic provocations, leaving behind the “art” in favor of exploitation. That didn’t stop it being a huge hit in France (surprise!), but with the result of dangerous damage to Boro’s reputation.

Immoral Tales Directed by Walerian Borowczyk

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Awards & Festivals

Locarno International Film Festival

1974

BFI London Film Festival

1973

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

Critics reviews

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Eroticism doesn’t just give him a theme; rather, it constitutes the form, the sensory surface of the films. It is in the heightened, tactile sensuality achieved through the combination of image and sound (when a breast rubs against a netted piece of fabric; when a bucolic, sunny field turns into an abrupt, rocky landscape beaten by the wind)… Here is a filmmaker who made eroticism into a guiding aesthetic principle, and believed that this erotic experience had a sublime value for the viewer.

Cristina Álvarez López

January 19, 2016

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CinePassion

A pearly study of fluids and skin, with Borowczyk forcing himself to switch from sex to death for the punchline, the great painter’s daughter becoming an object d’art in a vat of thick blood after having disapproved of the girls’ salacious sketches on lavatory walls.

Fernando F. Croce

December 27, 2007

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The House Next Door

Nudity reaches its pinnacle in the third episode at a sinister Hungarian bathhouse, and the movie’s curtain call is a stripped-down spectacle of three-way incest between the pope and his son and daughter scored to blaring church a cappella. That Immoral Tales gradually siphons out narrative until all that’s left is a stylized sex scene might be a helpful hint toward Borowczyk’s real predilections, but then again, the film remains obstinate in its prioritization of sex over story throughout.

Carson Lund

December 05, 2014

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What are people saying?

Jason's rating of the film Immoral Tales
Jason

Borowczyk's engagement w/ the erotic balances a sense of the absurd libidinal excesses and profanation of symbols required for human beings to bother to engage in sexual coupling, without sacrificing a genuine awe in the face of carnal beauty. This thing is a comedy. It is about folly. But we are swept up into it. We are horny. We are delirious before the prone object of desire. We are glorious, salivating slaves.
January 24, 2019 18:08
- 15
- 0
NICOLE86's rating of the film Immoral Tales
NICOLE86

One of the things I like about Borowczyk is that he respects the female figure. I also found the last story about the church my favorite of the stories due to all of the symbolic gestures.
December 14, 2018 19:42
- 18
- 4
El Biffo's rating of the film Immoral Tales
El Biffo

One of those 1970's films that could play at the arthouse cinema one week, and the porn cinema the next! I loved that. I need to see more Borowczyk...if I can find it. MUBI...more 70's arthouse porn, please?
January 24, 2019 17:53
- 22
- 2
dionysus67's rating of the film Immoral Tales
dionysus67

A visually stunning portmentau on the sexual politics of seclusion. In this complete version of the film, the link between religion and sexuality is explored at its most primordial. The unsurpassed editing generates synecdochic signs, capable of writing a new 'history of sexuality'. If only Borowczyk's gaze could had been more oblique at points accommodating more of the world of objects that he is so fixated with.
May 01, 2019 19:21
- 3
- 0
Eric Rucker's rating of the film Immoral Tales
Eric Rucker

Like Breillat, Boro challenges us to see women as free and with desires of their own that don't conform to standard imagery and male projections, and among the challenges are the situations that are horrible and repressive but where the women resist being "victims", which would maintain their being subject to men. The historical women here are as hard to cheer for as Alex in Clockwork Orange and just as deserving.
January 24, 2019 18:42
- 5
- 0
Alcock Hitchfred's rating of the film Immoral Tales
Alcock Hitchfred

Beautiful art direction in this arthouse erotic film, though I feel it hasn't aged that well. I couldn't really find the balance between the aesthetically pleasing and the pervy shots, but I think Borowczyk was an honest and talented filmmaker. I loved the first story.
January 24, 2019 18:42
- 2
- 0
Garçon Manqué's rating of the film Immoral Tales
Garçon Manqué

More like - violating tales.. "Eroticism,sex, is one of the most moral parts of life.Eroticism does not kill,exterminate,encourage evil,lead to crime." Well,there's nothing moral about rape.Rape is not erotic and should not be shown as a part of erotica.
March 10, 2019 13:56
- 6
- 12
ergotismus's rating of the film Immoral Tales
ergotismus

First segment one star, I wish the girl was more of an Immoral Women style violent ingenue and that she pushed that obnoxious boy into the sea. Second one star, third (repeated in The Beast) one, fourth three, fifth two. Easily some of Borowczyk's worst efforts, should have been just a full length version of the lady Bathory story.
January 24, 2019 18:35
- 9
- 2