Robert Horton is a Scarecrow board member and a longtime film critic. This series of "critic's notes" is chance to highlight worthy films playing locally and connect them to the riches of Scarecrow's collection.
A Catherine Breillat retrospective at the Grand Illusion has me looking back to my original reviews of Fat Girl and Sex Is Comedy, published in The Herald in 2001 and 2004. These pieces are merely introductions to the films, but maybe they will convey some of the surprise that attended Breillat's movies when they first came along.
Fat Girl
Even in a country where sexual investigation is accepted and respected in movies, Catherine Breillat keeps pushing boundaries and raising eyebrows.
"Fat Girl" is Breillat's latest rule-breaker. Sure enough, the movie has caused much discussion wherever it's played, and was just banned by the Ontario film board a few days ago.
"Fat Girl" is set during a summer at a nondescript resort. Two bored adolescent sisters are there with their self-absorbed parents. The elder girl is 15-year-old Elena (Roxane Mesquida), a beauty who finds it easy to attract the attention of boys; her 12-year-old sister Anais (Anais Reboux) is her opposite, a chubby and resentful girl who spends most of her energy on food.
In the film's opening sequence, the girls meet an older Italian boy (Libero De Rienzo) at an outdoor cafe. Within a few minutes, he and Elena are kissing, while Anais finishes up a banana split.
Over the course of the next few days, two long sequences detail the elaborate mating ritual of sex, in sometimes painful detail. The sexual situations are simulated, although the youth of the actors is sometimes alarming. Meanwhile, Anais observes these heated moments and fantasizes about her own future deflowering. Through it all, Breillat displays a devastatingly accurate gaze at the sisterly relationship, which is sometimes hateful, sometimes warm.
"Fat Girl" builds to an ending full of ominous portents, which then explodes in a truly shocking final sequence. Suddenly Breillat plunges the viewer into a horror movie from which there is no way out.
Take that as a warning; this movie is not a whimsical French gewgaw about coming of age, but a savage look at lost souls. It is full of ideas and provocations, and not for the faint of heart.
Sex Is Comedy
The French director Catherine Breillat has carved a place for herself as one of those love-her-or-hate-her artists. Her movies mix equal parts philosophical musings with graphic sex—she is French, after all.
Earlier this year two of her films played in the Seattle International Film Festival: "Sex is Comedy" and "Anatomy of Hell." The latter, which certainly lived up to its name, may have a tough time getting released over here. "Sex is Comedy," however, finds Breillat in a lighter mood. It's a self-portrait, and a look at the mayhem of a movie set.
We meet a film director, Jeanne (Anne Parillaud), who is a stand-in lookalike for Breillat herself. Jeanne is shooting a picture with two actors who can't stand each other, but must play intimate love scenes together.
They begin on a beach in winter, where the actors (Gregoire Colin and Roxane Mesquida) can hardly hide their mutual loathing in a kissing scene. They can't hide their goosebumps, either.
The story shifts to the studio, where Jeanne prepares a big bedroom sequence. The upcoming intimacy causes much anxiety on the set, but so does Jeanne's style of directing actors. She is at times a bully, mother, and flirt. She insults the actors and ignores them when they're at their neediest.
When the actors strip down for their lovemaking scene, the tension is broken by the necessity for a prosthetic device. Colin must wear an appendage that…well, let's just say Mark Wahlberg used one in "Boogie Nights," too.
This sequence is played for laughs, but through it all, Breillat keeps up a running commentary on men, women, and the alchemy of creating art. She's got an unusually good mouthpiece in Anne Parillaud (the original "La femme Nikita"). Now in her mid-forties, Parillaud has a lived-in beauty, and conveys a sense of weary intelligence.
The actors playing the actors are just right for their roles. Colin has an opaque, bratty quality that serves him well here, and Roxane Mesquida, while hardly a polished presence, is actually playing a variation on herself.
Breillat says she got the idea for this movie years ago, but the big sex scene is something of a re-creation of a similar scene from her incendiary film "Fat Girl." Roxane Mesquida was in that very scene, doing approximately what she does here.
"Words are lies, bodies are truth," says Jeanne. This behind-the-scenes lark is a typically odd work for Breillat, but even in her wiggiest moments, you sense she's always groping for the truth.
September 6, 2024
