I had never seen Fiona Gélin before viewing this movie, and haven't seen her since. Likewise for her half-sister, Maria Schneider, Brando's co-star in the infamous "Last Tango in Paris" (remember the scene with the stick of butter in the Paris hotel bathroom).
Whichever parent these two gals share passed on a large dose of "sensuality genes."
With the earthy, realistic scenes in northern Africa, the literally hot weather on-screen, alone, could cause you to perspire if you were watching the film from inside a meat locker.
And the on-screen scenes where this attractive and thoroughly sensual young woman beds a variety of sweaty males in open locations, including on horseback, with others nearby around, or a horde of males, all over the place, as she visits one of them at an apartment in a busy plaza area - no viewer could escape the effect of viewing her attempt to satisfy her active libido in a thoroughly unabashed fashion.
There isn't a lot of story here, and none of the characters - including hers - evokes a lot of emotion or empathy. But you cannot help but feel that her performance here outdoes others in more prominent films, and the on-screen performances of, say, Sharon Stone, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Kristin Scott Thomas, et al, in some of their work .
Pure SENSUALITY, deserving of "all caps."