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Catherine Breillat
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Catherine Breillat’s stronger films (A Real Young Girl, 36 Fillette) are variations on the sexual awakening of pubescent girls. They experiment with their newly functioning parts, but actually having sex is something of a tragedy. Of course, their curiosity will probably get the best of them. The difference between Fat Girl and the other two is, rather than make the newfound interest a schizophrenic inner battle, Breillat splits her heroine into two characters pursuing the sibling bond and rivalry through their budding fascination with boys.
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The star of Catherine Breillat’s Anatomy Of Hell, Rocco Siffredi, is the quintessential tortured artist. At only 40 and having recently announced his retirement, complaining of boredom and a lack of vision from his contemporaries, he is a modern-day Van Gogh. There’s nothing wrong with dedication, but when your “art” is porn it’s difficult not to laugh at his over-serious attitude towards the day job. We’re not complaining though, because the world would be a duller place without the self-aggrandizing, misogynist star of over 1,000 pornos, including the infamous Buttman series.
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Catherine Breillat offers an unflinching dissection of sibling rivalry and female adolescent sexuality in this bold coming-of-age drama. Twelve-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux) is a slightly over-weight girl with the weight of the world on her sholders, while her beautiful, fifteen-year-old sister, Elena, guides through life. Their love/hate relationship is captured perfectly during a summer vacation where Anais tags along with Elena and witnesses the corruption of her sister's innocence at the hands of an older, Italian college student. "Few movies have so effectively conveyed the alienation of adolescence, and the way children can be driven almost mad by their separation from life and love" (Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune). The DVD is a Criterion Collection Edition, and includes a behind-the-scenes featurette; the original French and U.S. theatrical trailers; an essay by film critic Ginette Vincendeau; an interview with Breillat, translated from the French film magazine, Positif; optional English subtitles; and more. In French with English subtitles.
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La Vellini is, of course, the title character of Catherine Breillat's eighteenth century costume drama The Last Mistress. She will cause the ruin of Ryno De Marigny (the appealing Fu'ad Ait Attou in his first role), a dashing playboy who wants to discard the old and start with the new: the lovely, wealthy young Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida). Ryno's problem... is that he can't seem to shake that old mistress. Despite all good intentions, he finds himself, again and again, returning to La Vellini and engaging in strident and artfully posed conjugal acts. Happiness is not to be his.
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Catherine Breillat was born in France. Breillat began a career in acting, appearing in films such as "Last Tango in Paris" (1972) and "Dracula and Son" (1977). Her sexually explicit novels and films examine the metaphysics of sex and follow a French tradition that stretches from de Sade to de Beauvoir, Bataille and Foucault. Selected filmography: Une Vraie Jeune Fille (1975), "Catherine et Cie" (1975), "Police" (1985), "Milan Noir" (1987), "36 Fillette" (1988), "Sale comme un Ange" (1990), "Couples et Amants" (1994), "Parfait Amour!" (1996), "Romance" (1999).
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Catherine Breillat is known for her transgressive studies of female sexuality in film. In shocking contemporary dramas including FAT GIRL and ROMANCE, she combines graphic interest in female sexual pleasure with ironic portrayals of power struggles in a male-dominated society. THE LAST MISTRESS sets these themes in a strikingly different setting: the aristocratic universe of 19th-century France. This is no conventional costume drama.... With a noticeable absence of a classical music soundtrack and the requisite wide shots of opulence, Breillat focuses on the minutiae of interpersonal exchange and sexual politics. Adapted from Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's novel, MISTRESS chronicles the love affair between tempestuous Spanish mistress La Vellini (Asia Argento) and the womanizing Ryno di Marigny (novice Fu’ad Ait Aattou).
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Catherine Breillat