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Hung, a French Vietnamese filmmaker whose eye for cinematic sensualism was on display in early works like “The Scent of Green Papaya” and “Cyclo,” here achieves something of a culinary contact high.

What she finds is “a society that professes to be an enclave of tropical sensualism but deep down is profoundly conservative, classist, and misogynist.”

Mr. Serra plunges us into the earthy sensualism and longueurs of Casanova’s daily life.

But the film’s harsh sensualism transcends the irritations of the plot.

The question of spiritual discipline has long been present in his writing: self-denial versus sensualism, the path of Jesus versus that of Byron.