There came a point in cinema history where certain filmmakers simply just decided to go against the advice of censors, and instead of following their strict code of what was supposedly acceptable on screen, most of them simply disregarded these standards and started to go in their direction. Roger Vadim has quite a notorious reputation as one of the supposed peddlers of debauchery and immorality on screen, and there are many examples of instances where he wholeheartedly earned this status, especially since he was not known to be someone who exercised any restraint when it came to portraying sexuality on screen. We can work our way back to the very beginning of his career and see that from the start, he possessed this penchant for more erotic-themed stories, and while he always retained some level of elegance, most of his work was driven by a fervent sexuality that often courted controversy. And God Created Woman is a fascinating curio of a film, with the story of a young, sexually charged woman growing up in an idyllic seaside village somewhere on the French coast being fertile ground for many of the director’s more peculiar ideas, which are infused into absolutely every frame of this film. There are many reasons to appreciate this film, even if it is inarguably not going to be to the taste of every viewer – there’s something so compulsively entertaining and often quite endearing about the simplicity with which Vadim approaches these ideas, and while it is doubtful that anyone will argue to the concept of And God Created Woman featuring much artistic resonance outside of a few intriguing ideas, it is difficult to not feel at least partially curious about this film and how it looks at certain themes, long before they became more common in mainstream productions.

Vadim is not a filmmaker for whom I am particularly fond, and I have often criticized his work for consisting of paper-thin narratives, as well as being driven more by a bizarre adoration for sexual activity than a conceivable, earnest story. Films like Barbarella and his contribution to the otherwise solid Spirits of the Dead are both attempts to do something slightly more artistically resonant, but even they fall apart at the seams based purely on the fatal combination of a lack of a discernible storyline and a deeply mediocre directorial approach – in essence, he was too lascivious to make decent films, but too ambitious to work in pornography, meaning that his films were a bizarre blend of erotica and drama, neither one particularly effective nor all that interesting, at least not in comparison to other films that occurred around them. Therefore, you can imagine my surprise in finding out that not only is And God Created Woman a definitively better film than almost anything else he made, but it is one of the more effective romantic dramas of this decade. It may not be particularly strong on a narrative level, but it at least has a point of view, and it is far more elegant than many of the films he would make in subsequent years. It often feels like this film was an attempt for Vadim, right at the start of his career, to gauge the extent to which he could push boundaries, in the hopes of taking them further as time went on. This is still a very scandalous film, and it relies on scintillating the audience, but it does so tastefully and with a solid artistic point of view. And God Created Woman is still very much about human sexuality and desire, it is just contained within a more nuanced storyline, one that has human characters that are not merely objects of desire. This doesn’t necessarily change the fact that some of the cultural components of the film, such as the battle of the sexes, are very dated, but considering how this was his debut film, it seems like a great achievement that Vadim’s most elegant work sits right at the start of his career as if he was only testing the waters for the later excursions into debauchery that would define the rest of his creative life.

And God Created Woman was not only the debut of the director but served to be the breakthrough performance for Brigitte Bardot. While she had acted in a few films before being cast in this one, these were mostly quite small roles and usually drew on her stunning appearance and willingness to play women defined by their looks (which was arguably the reason she became a star – her later efforts in doing more complex, character-driven work was something she developed into, rather than the plan from the start), and thus she was primed to make a proper debut as a leading actor in this film. Arguably, Vadim was cast based on looks rather than acting talent, since this is not a character that is particularly interesting or effective on her own, at least not at the start. Bardot is not a bad actor at all – in fact, she’s extremely talented, and she infuses the character of Juliette with so much wit and pathos, its fascinating to see her perform in this film because it often seems like she is fighting against the premise to give herself more to do, whereas Vadim likely would have preferred her to remain relatively sedate, acting as nothing more than an object of desire for the other male characters (and this would not be the first time an extremely gifted actor was shoehorned into nothing more than a sex kitten while under Vadim’s direction – Jane Fonda had the first part of her career defined by these middling roles, which made her ascent to one of the greatest in her craft all the more exciting), which Bardot only partially accepted, realizing that there was a lot more to this character than initially meets the eye. Her paramours are played by a few different actors, with icons of European cinema Jean-Louis Trintignant and Curd Jürgens being very good, but even more one-dimensional than Bardot, which is a result of the characters they were given rather than their roles overall. A film like this doesn’t require more than competent performances, so the fact that everyone turns in unexpectedly strong performances is an additional merit to this film, rather than a defining factor. 

Beyond the raw sexuality that sits at the heart of the film, and the actors cast to bring this story to life, you might be surprised to find that And God Created Woman is quite a stylish film. Vadim may have been a director with a penchant for the perverse, but he had a strong attention to detail, and the visual composition of his films, while not perfect, is still very strong. Looking at this film, you would struggle to believe it was made in the heart of the 1950s since it has such a strong visual aesthetic that feels almost timeless. It was a smart decision to set it in the small hamlet of Saint Tropez, since not only is this a stunningly beautiful part of the country, but it also doesn’t date the film, since it essentially has always been preserved to look the same, meaning that we are not spending a lot of time trying to make sense of the surroundings, but instead luxuriating in their timeless, pastoral beauty. However, this is all par for the course for Vadim, who usually embodies the concept of style over substance, and while this is often a source of a lot of criticism (especially since we have presumably moved on from an era in which dazzling images are enough to distract from non-existent narratives and poor character development), when it is used in context, it can be quite effective. This is a surprisingly well-made film, and while it may not be particularly effective when it comes to actually telling a strong story, we can at least splendour in the images, which are quite beautiful and always memorable. Vadim was a very playful director, so one of the few merits of his work as a whole is usually seeing how he skirts around controversy, challenging conventions in creative and fascinating ways. This film, in particular, has some of his more tasteful but still riveting visual details, and it is not at all surprising that And God Created Woman was confronted with a lot of scandal across the world, since even at its most sophisticated, it is still very provocative – the only difference here is that it at least is entertaining and has some semblance of logic behind it, which is quite a rare occurrence in much of the director’s later work.

When it comes to critiquing a film, we have to assess whether it delivers on what it promises, and the extent to which this is the case – can a film be truly good if it doesn’t give us what we expect (or at least something equally worthwhile), and can we criticize bad films even when the final product is exactly what was written on the proverbial packaging? This is the enigma when it comes to the films made by Vadim, since he may not have been a particularly well-rounded or versatile director, and usually worked in genres that were not particularly lenient when it comes to artistic integrity – but yet he consistently delivered on the promises made by his films, and the viewer knows exactly what they are getting when venturing into one of his films. I am hesitant to proclaim And God Created Woman as some masterpiece, since this is not a particularly good film in terms of overall experience, and it is important to look at these concepts holistically rather than in isolation. However, this is by far one of his strongest efforts on a compartmental level – it has good performances and very well-crafted direction, with only the writing and development of these characters not being particularly strong, but also not being weak enough to detract from the film as a whole. More than anything else, we can view And God Created Woman as a pleasant diversion, a journey into a charming little village in which we get to spend some time exploring the lives of these characters. It is a fresh, funny and heartful romantic comedy with a lot of merit in how it realizes some of its ideas despite the narrative weaknesses, which does tip the scales in favour of this being relatively worth the viewer’s time, at least in terms of the genre in which it was made. It may not be complex, but it never aimed to be, and Vadim is doing solid work here, enough to convince even a cynic like me that he may have possessed some talent beyond the visual scope, even if it would have been better for him to hone these gifts on more than just run-of-the-mill erotic films in later years.