"And God Created Women" - Film Review

“And from the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” –Genesis 2:22

It might seem odd that a film as breezy, light, and with the subject matter of And God Created Women would take its title from a Bible passage. The film isn’t a Bible thumping sermon condemning nontraditional gender practices; in fact, the title is laced with an arsenic irony. Though I don't know if it necessarily earns the right to quote from the Bible, there's certainly a logic to it. The film has a number of supporting characters admonishing Bridget Bardot’s Juliette for her promiscuous, flirtatious behavior, but it’s never judgmental about this behavior. The film isn’t trying to criticize her behavior but rather criticize those people that look down upon it.

Director Roger Vadim is really sensitive towards the character. There’s a clear affection for Juliet that comes across throughout the film. This makes it particularly painful to watch Juliette while she gets berated for outdated standards that were becoming increasingly out of touch. 

So much of the film is about people making Juliette do things with her life that she clearly doesn’t want to do but is forced to because of social norms or expectations. Juliette is someone who was never meant to be tied down though; she’s a free spirit. And yet everyone wants to tell her who to be and how to act. But that just leads her to be deeply unhappy.

It’s hard not to think of Jessica Rabbit’s great line “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn this way”. Juliette is a stunningly beautiful individual and she’s very open about her sexuality. “She’s brave enough to do what she wants when she wants,” the land developer Eric Carradine (Curd Jürgens) says early on. It perfectly sums up the character. There’s nothing wrong with her, but because she knows what she wants and she goes out and gets it she gets unjustifiably and cruelly called a “slut”. 

It’s a shame Carradine is twice her age because he’s the spot-on match for her. He understands her and respects her like no one else does, but he’s too concerned with her happiness to let things go anywhere.

Her other suitors aren’t much better matches. She loved Antoine (Christian Marquand) but when she learns he sees her as just a fling; she breaks off engagements with him. Later Antoine wants her back, but only out of jealousy for marrying his brother Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant). 

Juliette is only eighteen; she’s an orphan and her foster parents no longer desire to keep her around once the rumor mill starts piling on the mutterings about her sexual dalliances. She’s about to be sent back to the orphanage, but Carradine contrives a plan to keep her around: someone needs to marry her so she can stay. Michel takes up the suggestion. Michel is too naïve to realize what he’s getting into. Juliette loves him, but it’s a marriage of convenience and even his best attempts to keep her from getting bored just aren’t doing the trick. 

“What are you afraid of?” Carradine asks. “Myself,” she replies. Juliette wants to make the marriage work, but she is too self-destructive.

A lot of how the film is plotted is lightweight and contrived, and it’s easy to see it building towards a point where Julliete is torn between her wild ways and a quieter everyday existence.  Plus that ending seems to play against its more feministic earlier tones as Michel finally “tames” her.  

 

Yet much of the film works in spite of this. It’s sometimes funny, occasionally sad, playful, incredibly sultry and in love with the very fact that it’s being uncommonly upfront about sexuality and sexual mores (the film was something of a scandal back in 1956). Bardott remains to be a sight to behold. The film put her on the map and defined her as the sex symbol she's remembered as. Vadim once said, “That was one of the most amazing things about Brigitte’s presence on film. People often thought she was naked when she wasn’t.” It's not even that the film chooses to shoot Bardot in a way that you're meant to ogle her, but just be in awe that someone can possibly carry themselves so naturally and sensually. Despite my problems with the ending, the level of sympathy it has towards Juliette still make the messages of its film still surprisingly relevant and powerful, and the film is still very, very sexy.  

Grade: B