À MA SŒUR !
FAT GIRL |
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Writer/Director:
Catherine Breillat
Cast: Anaïs: Anaïs Reboux; Elena: Roxane Mesquida; Fernando:
Libero de Rienzo; Mother: Arsinée Khanjian.
Awards: Manfred Salzgeber Award, Berlin Int’l Film Festival
(2001).
Running time: 83 minutes
Year of production: 2001
Rating: Not rated; WARNING! Adolescent sex, nudity.
Gauge: 16 & 35mm (color)
Language: French
Distributor: Cowboy Pictures
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“A
work of bold irrationality and highly questionable taste, Fat Girl
is as fascinating as it is discomfiting and as intelligent as it is
primal. From first shot to last, France’s foremost bad girl has
made an extremely good movie--and maybe even a great one.” J.
Hoberman, The Village Voice. |
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Breillat
returns to the fertile territory of her 1988 breakthrough film, 36
Fillette, with another frank, clear-eyed portrait of adolescent
female sexuality. Anaïs, a chubby 12-year-old, and her svelte,
sultry 15-year-old sister, Elena, go on a vacation with their self-absorbed
parents to the south of France. Before long Elena meets the handsome
and eager Fernando, an Italian law student, whom she invites to her
bedroom (shared with Anaïs). After a prolonged seduction, during
which Fernando mounts every possible argument to convince the scared
but desirous Elena to give up her virginity, Elena resorts to other
means of satisfying him. The entire episode is witnessed by Anaïs
who provides a distancing device, directing the viewer’s attention
toward the sisters’ contradictory feelings about sex. In their
next meeting Elena gives herself to Fernando, only to have the entire
holiday brusquely terminated by her outraged mother when she finds
out. Anaïs, herself preoccupied with sex, is both jealous and
critical of her big sister and in the gruesome and shocking finale
gets her own back. The palpable empathy and antagonism between the
sisters forms the backbone of the story, and the different ways in
which they lose their virginity reflects their different personalities,
bodies and beliefs.
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| PHOTO Courtesy
of Cowboy Pictures |
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