A bunch of attractive young people get together in a sexual encounter group in a mansion on a hill so they can explore each other's bodies and shed their carnal inhibitions. Alex de Renzy's off the cuff documentary offers an interesting depiction of pop psychology as well as the loosening permissive mores and anything-goes experimental mindset that were key defining components of the early 70's sexual revolution. What really makes this documentary so charming is the way that it presents sex in a pure, healthy, and honest manner that's utterly bereft of moral judgment or any suggestion that what the group are doing is remotely dirty or sinful in any way. This in turn means that the scenes of people touching and smelling each other possess a surprising and refreshing innocence that gives the climatic group sex which occurs at the end a significant erotic impact because it's shown in an extremely pleasant and non-prurient context. Done in a stark and unadorned verite style, it's well worth a watch for aficionados of 70's adult cinema fare.
2 Reviews
Fascinating time capsule of the early 70's sexual revolution
Woodyanders4 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Hard to Judge in Current State
Michael_Elliott8 December 2016
Sexual Encounter Group (1970)
Alex de Renzy started off his career making documentaries including this one here, which involves a group of people who gather in a house where they feel, smell and touch each other before everyone has sex. I must admit that it's hard to judge this movie because the last two reels are missing their soundtrack so it's impossible to hear what the people are talking about and the truth is that the spoken words were often the best thing going for the picture.
As a documentary this is fairly well-made but there's no question that the subject itself is what really sells this. You'd think that a group of people sitting around sniffing one another would be boring but I thought the people were rather interesting and their laughing and goofing off seemed legit and this "party" just seemed like a good time. The film is all softcore at first and in fact it takes quite a while before we see any actual nudity. The final fifteen-minutes is when the group begin to have sex and there's some hardcore footage, although the film still plays more like a documentary that just some cheap porno.
Again, it's really too bad that the soundtrack is missing for the majority of the movie because this makes it impossible to fully judge. Vinegar Syndrome has replaced the missing soundtrack with music from other de Renzy films. Still, even with the missing soundtrack, I found this here to be rather entertaining.
Alex de Renzy started off his career making documentaries including this one here, which involves a group of people who gather in a house where they feel, smell and touch each other before everyone has sex. I must admit that it's hard to judge this movie because the last two reels are missing their soundtrack so it's impossible to hear what the people are talking about and the truth is that the spoken words were often the best thing going for the picture.
As a documentary this is fairly well-made but there's no question that the subject itself is what really sells this. You'd think that a group of people sitting around sniffing one another would be boring but I thought the people were rather interesting and their laughing and goofing off seemed legit and this "party" just seemed like a good time. The film is all softcore at first and in fact it takes quite a while before we see any actual nudity. The final fifteen-minutes is when the group begin to have sex and there's some hardcore footage, although the film still plays more like a documentary that just some cheap porno.
Again, it's really too bad that the soundtrack is missing for the majority of the movie because this makes it impossible to fully judge. Vinegar Syndrome has replaced the missing soundtrack with music from other de Renzy films. Still, even with the missing soundtrack, I found this here to be rather entertaining.
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