Catherine Breillat On DVD
By: Kevin Filipski |
Saturday January 22, 2005 |
| "The problem is that censors create the concept of obscenity. By supposedly trying to protect us they form an absurd concept of what is obscene." - Catherine Breillat |
| Director Catherine Breillat has been a cinematic "agent provocateur" ever since her tough-minded exploration of a teenage girl's budding sexuality, 36 Fillette, played at the 1988 New York Film Festival.
Her subsequent films barely made a dent here in the States, with the partial exceptions of 1999's Romance (with its hardcore scenes) and Fat Girl, which played at the 2001 New York Film Festival. But now - probably more by coincidence than design - three Breillat films are on DVD in short order: Fat Girl (Criterion), 2002's Sex Is Comedy (MGM), and her latest outrage, Anatomy of Hell (Tartan). Breillat has always unflinchingly studied sexuality, power and violence, and Fat Girl brought her to the forefront of contemporary directors with its look at the effects of a beautiful teenage girl's first sexual experience on her chubby and unattractive younger sister. Seeing her older sister fooled into losing her virginity by her boyfriend's false protestations of love, our fat girl promises herself that her own first time will not be connected in any way to love: a point all too horrifically (and ironically) realized in the film's shocking ending. Criterion's Fat Girl DVD includes brief interviews with Breillat, who explains her intentions, including the film's extremely difficult climax (she originally envisioned a different denouement). Sex Is Comedy, made immediately after Fat Girl, stars Roxana Mesquida (the older sister in the earlier movie) as a young actress who loathes her leading man, and Anne Parillaud as the director trying to coax hot scenes from her cold co-stars. Parillaud is obviously playing a stand-in for Breillat herself, and the movie is basically a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Breillat's own difficulties filming the intimate scenes in Fat Girl. Only Breillat could make a detached comic movie about making a movie with explicit sex in it; Sex Is Comedy is not one of her most memorable pictures, but even minor Breillat has its distinctive rewards. It's too bad the MGM DVD has no extras; a Breillat audio commentary might have been too much to ask, but at least a brief interview would have sufficed. In Anatomy of Hell, Breillat brings back porn star Rocco Siffredi (who starred in Romance) for another go-round in an all-too-literal exploration of the female body. Amira Casar stars as a woman who picks up Siffredi in a gay bar and brings him back to her beach house where she proceeds to open herself up to him in every way...they screw, she puts her bloody tampon in a glass of water and makes him drink it, he puts a garden tool from the shed into her vagina, for starters. What's it all about, Catherine? As a theoretical tract, Anatomy of Hell (which began life as a Breillat novel) is far more successful than it is as a movie. But the Tartan DVD gives Criterion a run for its money: there's a splendid transfer, the option of DTS audio - along with Dolby 5.1 and regular stereo - and, best of all, an hour-long interview with the director, which takes the place of a badly-needed audio commentary. Breillat's insights into anatomy, sexuality and power are far more substantive in her discussions than when she made Anatomy of Hell. |
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