Parents' Guide to Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction

This romance could've been so much better. The set design, art direction, costumes, and cinematography are all beautiful in this fairy tale kingdom, but the misogynistic plot, antiquated character designs, and questionable sexual ethics of Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction prevent it from being enjoyable. For those who can put aside these issues or excuse them because the film exists in a fantasy time and place (that mimics Denmark in the 1800s), the film's cheeky and playful entertainment and comedy might be enough to make the story worth seeing to its conclusion. But still, the mystery is wholly about whether or not Casotte will succeed in tricking Ehrengard into falling for and sleeping with him. And there's also the wager he has with the Grand Duchess regarding his quest, the sequence of scenes that find Casotte teaching a young prince how to seduce a woman who is "a week shy of 18," and Casotte's repeated spying on Ehrengard multiple mornings as she undresses and bathes in a lake, all of which are hard to read as innocent, playful fun.

Further, for a film whose title is the name of the woman of Casotte's desire, one might think that more of the story would involve the titular character, but save for the last quarter of the film, Ehrengard has very little to do or say. By the end it feels evident that as an object of desire, Ehrengard is also simply an object in title as well (as in the title of the film), rather than a fully complex, developed, and round character. Yes, she throws proverbial cold water over some of the traditional expectations of romance films, but she still nevertheless appears as only a small part of the overall plot. Also, insofar as Casotte fairs, his comeuppance is incredibly small; he suffers very little consequence for any of his actions. To be clear, all the sexual mischief is meant to come off comedically, and men are often represented as lacking in various traditional areas of normative masculinity, but the misogyny of perspective and plot remains, and, fantasy or not, there isn't much romance or comedy in this (not) fairy tale.