Last Summer (L'été Dernier)

 

Director Catherine Breillat

LAST SUMMER (L'été Dernier)       B-                                                                                 France  Norway  (104 mi)  2023  d: Catherine Breillat

Since I’m an artist, I don’t have to be politically correct.                                                                —Catherine Breillat, Catherine Breillat: Asia Argento Is a Traitor and I don't ... 

The kind of film you’ll see made only in France, which has a tradition of summer movies that spin out of control in dizzying fashion, as it fits their sensibility of lurid provocation causing considerable outrage.  There’s a contentious aspect to all the films of this director, where fantasy always plays a large role, typically female fantasies in the context of a patriarchal society, and this is no different, as she enjoys exploring the edge of moral turpitude, literally normalizing taboo subjects, feeling very comfortable with the uncomfortable.  Described by Beatrice Loyaza in her Film Comment interview (Interview: Catherine Breillat on Last Summer) in the fall of 2023 as “the high priestess of errant female sexuality.  Throughout her career, she has continued to ruffle feathers, be it with her austere visions of (unsimulated) sex (Romance, 1999) or with her unflinchingly violent portrayals of sexual initiation (Fat Girl, 2001),” while actress Asia Argento, who worked with her on THE LAST MISTRESS (2007), fed up with her aversion to the #MeToo movement while publicly defending serial rapist Harvey Weinstein after more than 80 women made allegations of sexual harassment or rape against him, described Breillat as “the most sadistic and downright evil director I’ve ever worked with (French Filmmaker Catherine Breillat Calls Actress Asia ...).”  Coming after a period of not making any films in a decade, the 76-year old director, novelist, and European Graduate School film professor chose to do a literal French remake of May el-Toukhy’s edgy Danish film QUEEN OF HEARTS (2019), working for the first time with cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie, who began her career shooting André Téchiné's remarkable Wild Reeds (Les Roseaux Sauvages) (1994), with a screenplay written by Breillat and Pascal Bonitzer, which premiered at Cannes in 2023.  The scandalous story recalls the moral transgressions of Woody Allen’s infamous love affair with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former partner Mia Farrow, who discovered nude photographs of Previn in Allen’s home, yet they ended up in a marriage that still stands the test of time, despite a more than thirty year age difference between them, while also recalling the tabloid sensation of Todd Haynes’ 2023 Top Ten List #9 May December, which subverts the typical male predator role into a female.  Women and female desire have been a consistent element of Breillat's work, where part of equality of the sexes is an understanding that they’re both equally capable of carrying out the same kind of crimes, including crimes of passion, where certainly one of the goals of this film is to reverse gender norms.  In this regard, Breillat distinguishes herself, as she refuses to render judgment on either party, but instead presents a quasi-realist take on a particularly dark subject matter, as a torrid sexual relationship develops between a fifty-year old woman Anne (Léa Drucker, from Xavier Legrand’s 2017 Top Ten List #7 Custody (Jusqu'à la garde) and Lukas Dhont’s Close in 2022), and her self-absorbed, emotionally remote 17-year old stepson Théo (Samuel Kirchner, the son of actress Irène Jacob and younger brother of Paul Kirchner from Christophe Honoré’s 2023 Top Ten List #6 Winter Boy (Le Lycéen), who was originally cast in the role), bearing some physical resemblance to Björn Andrésen, the beautiful boy portrayed in Luchino Visconti’s DEATH IN VENICE (1971).  The French have a term for it, amour fou, an uncontrollable or obsessive passion, succumbing to the power of the flesh over reason, often with an accompanying sense of doom.  With no real audience connection to any of the characters, and her usual lack of subtlety or grace, not really her strong suit, Breillat turns the screws in making this as disturbing and as uncomfortable as possible, yet still quintessentially French, turning this into a bonafide horror movie, with a lie at the heart of the picture, intentionally left ambiguous, without a trace of melodrama, though it can feel contrived and over-the-top, bordering on bombastic, where Breillat’s characters have a history of making bad decisions and constantly lying to themselves, while the unsettling nature of the fallout can leave viewers with a sinking feeling.

Listed at #9 on Cahiers du Cinéma: Top Ten Films of 2023, and #5 by John Waters, this is an elevated family drama with a pernicious undercurrent of forbidden love, where it brings to mind Bernardo Bertolucci’s LUNA (1979), an incestuous love story between an opera singer (Jill Clayburgh) and her drug-addicted 15-year-old son, something Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky described as “monstrous, cheap, vulgar rubbish."  What makes this so abhorrent is Anne’s profession, as she’s a French juvenile rights attorney for sexually abused minors, so she’s used to seeing the traumatic harm inflicted by adults onto children, where the profound impact is not just heartbreaking, but emotionally devastating.  So she’s a gatekeeper for damaged youth, a protector from salacious and injurious acts, where the psychological damage is long-lasting and incomprehensibly toxic.  With that introductory backdrop, what follows is a cautionary tale that takes us down a rabbit hole of aberrant behavior.  Théo has been living with his mother in Geneva, but after getting kicked out of school for assaulting a teacher, this problem child comes to live with Anne and her husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), along with their two young adopted Asian daughters Angela (Angela Chen) and Serena (Serena Hu), in an immense home on the heavily forested outskirts of Paris.  Pierre has business connections that require extensive travel, harboring a guilty conscience about not being there during Théo’s childhood, still having a distant relationship, with a brooding Théo remaining socially aloof, continually glued to his phone, seen moping in his room, and not really interacting with anyone.  His emotional volatility creates a negative impression, regarded as an irritant, where he just doesn’t give a damn about anyone else.  When Anne discovers he’s the likely culprit in a break-in, his self-centered attitude doesn’t sit well with her, so she attempts to set him straight, but in doing so opens herself up, spending time together during one of her husband’s prolonged absences, even allowing him to give her a small, homemade tattoo on her forearm, a completely unlikely scenario that leads to kisses and a passionate embrace, where it’s clear she has crossed the line of acceptable behavior.  As improbable as it sounds, she allows herself to get caught up in forbidden desires, suddenly reliving her lost youth in the pastoral bliss of summer, echoing Agnės Varda’s KUNG-FU MASTER! (1988), perhaps best expressed in a vintage Mercedes convertible drive out in the countryside set to the music of Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth - Dirty Boots (Revised Audio) YouTube (5:06), which is like an engine gearing up for a heightened impact.  This rebellious spirit emboldens them both, suddenly free to defy the odds and ignore all the warning signs, breaking down all moral boundaries, simply plunging into the forbidden zone, Here is an exclusive clip from French provocateur Catherine ... YouTube (2:20).  On the other hand, Anne is rarely seen without a glass of wine in her hand, potentially clouding her judgment, yet if audiences know anything about her it is that she of all people should know better, something we are constantly reminded of throughout the film.  Based on this knowledge, it’s hard to view her as a sexual predator, and she has multiple opportunities to break it off, but succumbs instead to her lustful instincts at the expense of everything else, all happening right under the nose of her husband, where this is a film that prioritizes the carnal part of the relationship rather than the havoc it could wreak, but the sex scenes play out almost entirely as close-ups on faces rather than naked bodies.  The moral hypocrisy is hard to miss, especially having seen the emotional fragility of the young girls Anne represents, yet she continually places herself in the most compromising positions, falling into an ethical free fall where rules are simply thrown out the window.  It’s hard to view this as anything other than arrogance and self-righteousness, as if this is her God-given right.      

The film is told almost completely through Anne’s perspective, allowing viewers to actually get inside her head, which adds a subversive layer to the experience.  And while this illicit couple sneak around behind the backs of adults, they are discovered by her sister Mina (Clotilde Courau), who has had her own difficult struggles in life and is truly disgusted by what she sees, as her sister is someone Mina could lean on for advice and support.  Théo doesn’t care if they get discovered, as he’s not connected to anyone or anything, but Anne has her family and career to think about, where she is jeopardizing both.  In a beautiful outdoor setting for lunch, the unsuspecting Pierre discusses taking his son for a little one-on-one time together, thinking it’s exactly what he needs, as we see Théo’s shirtless frame hovering in the background, like you see in the horror films, Last Summer (L'Été Dernier) new clip official from Cannes ... YouTube (1:31), suggesting Anne is in deeper trouble than she thinks, where the amped up tension is thick, knowing how this could open Pandora’s Box.  Upon his return, Pierre reveals his son’s startling allegations, but rather than confront the reality of her own behavior, Anne instead pretends nothing happened and doubles down on the cover up, coldly pretending it’s all a vile lie espoused by a mixed-up kid who’s trying to get back at his father for not being there for him.  The further down the road we go, the uglier and more loathsome it feels, revealing an unseemly side of the power dynamics of middle class entitlement, with Anne banking on her contention that no one will believe a troubled kid over a seasoned adult professional, where the irony is not lost on us, coming from a woman who advocates for minors, “Nobody will believe you.  You’re not credible.”  While that may be her viewpoint, it is certainly not that of the viewing audience, who are appalled at what we see, as she has betrayed not only her marriage and parental responsibilities, but also everything that her profession stands for.  Thoroughly capable of committing the same crimes as men, Anne privileges female pleasure in a way that is not only problematic, but treads rather murkily into rape territory, if not legally then certainly metaphorically.  In France, the legal age of consent is fifteen-years old, so the real taboo is incest, which applies to sexual relationships between children under 18 and their stepparents. Breillat portrays the situation with little to no judgment, even when things fall apart under the stress of outside scrutiny, but for viewers this becomes fertile grounds for horror, filled with self-deceptions, accentuated by Anne’s defiant lies and her insistent denial of any and all responsibility, essentially subverting the truth, completely blind to the ramifications, where in the end there is a general acceptance of the unacceptable.  That may be the real horror.  Who knew she would become the wicked stepmother, often seen in a devious light in fairy tales (The myth of the evil stepmother - BBC).  It shows that people of a privileged social class will resort to anything, lies, hypocrisy, or even smear tactics to defend their bourgeois lifestyles.  As a point of contention, Breillat’s own attitude towards this film bears some scrutiny, describing at a Cannes press conference that what transpires is “pure love” (Catherine Breillat Talks Taboo-Breaking Cannes film Last ...), as there is a certain romanticization in the relationship of Anne and Théo, though it couldn’t be less about “love,” as it’s so self-centered and destructive, exuding no faith in each other, or any existing humanity, with Breillat also suggesting there is no abuse, that “All of my characters are innocent” (State of Grace: Catherine Breillat on Last Summer), describing those who negatively pass moral judgment on their affair as “the ayatollahs.”  Similarly, she has spoken out against intimacy coordinators, describing them as “stupid” while also comparing them to the Taliban (Awful #metoo extremism is worse than McCarthyism).  In this instance, the director may be her own worst enemy, as her instincts for lacking any moral compass are a dangerous position for any artist, actually recalling the reaction of the Julianne Moore character in MAY DECEMBER, where a 34-year old teacher pleaded guilty to having sex with a 12-year old 6th grade student, yet in her mind she viewed statutory rape as a Shakespearean romance of star-crossed lovers, veering into a delusional psychopathic understanding, with French novelist Christine Angot similarly denouncing Breillat’s film as “an aestheticization of incest.”  As the Rohmeresque title indicates, this is one of Breillat’s lightest films, only showing what she wants us to see, yet by the end, the heavy storm clouds are lurking on the distant horizon.

36 Fillette

 

Writer/director Catherine Breillat

36 FILLETTE            B+                                                                                                               aka:  Virgin                                                                                                                               France  (84 mi)  1988  d: Catherine Breillat

Told using a quietly observant style, long-takes, static cameras, and an aesthetic of long shots, this is the only Breillat film that’s actually enjoyable to experience, though continually finding ways to confound viewers, initially declared a critical disaster until Michel Ciment of Positif praised it in Cannes, becoming her first film to gain international attention, quickly becoming the bestselling French export for the period.  Taking us back to our early teenage years when we craved anything new, bored by the stifling monotony of everyday life where nothing ever changed, always searching for something more, but having no idea how to find it, we all made dumb mistakes once, naively attracted to the mysteries of the unknown, wondering what we’d find, often blindly entering dangerous places, attracted by the newness of it all, but without a clue what might be in store.  Perhaps that’s the allure, where it hardly matters if it’s good or bad, but at least it made us feel like we actually existed, while at home no one ever saw us for who we were, not even ourselves, which is why we missed the danger signals in searching for something different.  That desire to seek out new experiences is a shining light at the end of a dark corridor, as it felt like there were no other options, so plunging headfirst into the darkness was our only way to find release.  People learn from their mistakes, which means they have to make mistakes, which is simply part of growing up.  Breillat senses this turbulent zone of teenage angst, too old to be a kid, but too young to be an adult, so where do you fit in?  This no man’s land is the territory explored in her early films, where it’s not just the kids making dumb mistakes, but the surrounding adults as well, where it’s impossible to think clearly under such dreadful circumstances, immersed in dead ends to nowhere.   While this is about a strong-willed girl with a woman’s body who’s only fourteen, with continual questions swirling around her head, but when she gets with a man who wants to have sex with her, she’s both attracted and repulsed, so she plays the game that young girls have to learn how to play, taking it slowly at first, but this is a dance with temptation and fate, where the outcome can be unpredictable, either deliriously wonderful of dreadfully horrible, as the pendulum swings both ways.  For many men, a woman’s sexuality and desire is basically non-existent, as sex only conforms to their own desires.  To see this from a female perspective, however, makes all the difference, as overall the film works to de-eroticize desire, becoming meticulously unerotic.  Yes, the girl is a tease, walking right into a situation with warning signs flashing all around her, thinking maybe she has control, but she’s never been in this situation before, leaving her questioning herself and the lingering question of what it’s all about, as reality never matches how it plays out in your head.  There’s a memorable scene in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show (1971) where the look on Cybill Shepherd’s face expresses the relief of what everyone eventually needs to find out, where breaking that sexual mystery is one of life’s perplexing questions. 

Made nine years after her previous release, this terrific early film opens in the sunny resort town of Biarritz, the site of Éric Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert (Summer) (1986), an elegant seaside tourist destination known for its beaches and hotels, though this film mostly shows the town’s dull outskirts.  It’s here that we find fourteen-year-old Lili (Delphine Zentout) living in their family Winnebago parked on a jam-packed vacation campground with her endlessly bickering parents and older teenage brother, Jean-Pierre (Stéphane Moquet).  While they’re not on the best of terms, he is her salvation out of there, as otherwise she’s stuck being cooped up with her parents all day, suffocating from their disinterest, which is a real drag.  The teen years are a very symbolic period for Breillat, marking the beginning of her career as a writer and filmmaker, as she was only seventeen when she wrote and published her first novel, L’Homme facile (A Man for the Asking), yet the French government banned it for readers under 18 years old due to the erotic content.  Nouvelle Vague directors often adapted literary sources, as Godard’s Contempt (Le Mépris) (1963) was based on the novel by Alberto Moravia (1954) and Truffaut’s films SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER (1960) and JULES AND JIM (1962) were adaptations of novels by David Goodis (1956) and by Henri-Pierre Roché (1953).  Breillat began her career by adapting her own novels, with three of her first films dealing with a coming-of-age teenage girl as her main focus, A REAL YOUNG GIRL (1976), based on her own novel Le Soupirail, actually released twenty-five years later in 2000 due to the bankruptcy of her producers, this one, and FAT GIRL (2001), all taking place during summer holiday, where the dullness of the place is reinforced by the oppressiveness of their parents, who sustain and perpetuate the repressive and controlling bourgeois society, yet this also becomes a place of adolescent exploration, searching out for a space of their own far away from their parent’s prying eyes.  These films deal with a woman’s lack of freedom, where ways to escape this oppression leads to an awkward rebelliousness, yet they are also deeply intimate expressions of the director’s own life, where literature and cinema are closely intertwined, as the sea becomes a place for Breillat’s young girls where they can create an imaginary space for themselves.  Living in a society where women are ashamed to admit to their fears or desires, Breillat shows how young girl’s lives have been sabotaged by a largely Catholic society that wants them to remain virgins until they can discover a husband they love.  These expectations carry a heavy weight, leading to sexual confusion, alienated from their own inner selves, often forced to denounce or disregard the outdated norms of society, questioning their own identity in a personal quest to discover their own individual notion of femininity, as virginity is viewed as a passage of womanhood.  Breillat firmly believes that cinema can ease the path for these young women, or help to open their eyes and show them the way.  Unfortunately, most of Breillat’s work generates considerable unease and delves into disturbing territory, where breaking boundaries and challenging taboos can also lead to a frank exploration of female sexual experiences that can sometimes border on masochism and cruelty, with the audience placed in an uncomfortable position of having to witness the unspeakable.  

Much like watching Émilie Dequenne in nearly every scene of the Dardenne brother’s ROSETTA (1999), Delphine Zentout is the story of this picture.  Unlike many of her other films, Breillat has finally found a character who is strong enough to carry the dramatic weight of the entire picture, where Zentout is never anything less than genuine.  Adapting her own 1987 novel of the same name, Breillat follows the exploits of an aggressive, sexually curious young girl on the verge of womanhood, and while she’s perpetually sullen and wildly flirtatious, also something of a spoiled brat, the film explores the notion of ambiguity that she embodies, filled with hesitancies and contradictions, having grown tired of being a virgin and what that seems to represent, so she attempts to assert her autonomy and individuality, defined by fluid, shifting desires, living in a state of continuous flux, as epitomized by her temporary seaside vacation environment.  Adolescence is a time when the desires of young girls are controlled and suppressed by a society that never really recognizes their individuality.  According to her parents, Lili is not allowed to go out on her own, as she’s too young, but can only leave accompanied by her brother, who, by contrast, can come and go as he pleases.  This authorized chaperone system is all a ruse, as Lili ditches him the first chance she gets and ends up hitchhiking into town on her own.  The bickering relationship with her brother mirrors what we see from their parents, where some of the mistrust and wild behavior of Lili may be linked to undermining treatment by both her parents and the physical abuse by her father, where underage sex may be seen as a rebellion against her depressing confinement.  Accordingly, she views virginity as a curse that deprives her of her independence, feeling like a stranger in her own body.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is the appearance of Jean-Pierre Léaud as the famous concert pianist Boris Golovine, whose posters are seen all around town, with Lili running into him at an autograph signing in a local café, dressed in a corset and long black raincoat, where there is something inherently amusing about the burning intensity Léaud brings, seen in a formal tux, where his reputation and his connection to New Wave films precedes him, as he was something of a delinquent rebel himself as a teenager, so just his appearance alone brings a wry edge of humor.  The serious eye contact between Lili and Golovine is hilarious, as she’s impatiently standing off to the side, the only one not interested in an autograph, while he’s busily signing autographs for adoring fans, as suddenly a packed establishment is strangely empty, so they sit down together for a private conversation, which is surprisingly in-depth and personal, more so than any other sequence in the entire film.  Identifying with the world of creativity and women, as illustrated by his largely female admirers, Léaud is an emblematic figure in French cinema, where they discuss the travails of growing up bored and unappreciated, as she confesses her frustrations and desires, similar to the young Léaud, expressing a kind of me-against-the-world attitude, though both are rarely seen in the same shot, coming across as two soliloquies, yet he sympathetically encourages her to land in a different place.  While the scene is brief, it’s utterly delightful, a prelude for what’s to come, yet what stands out is the tinge of sadness she brings, completely humanizing her character, while it’s impossible not to notice the religious cross she wears on her necklace, a symbol of the burden she must overcome.

Finally making her way to the disco where Lili meets her brother, already passing out from the drinks, and an older man, Maurice (Étienne Chicot), who takes an interest in her youthful exhibitionism, as she’s seen flirting heavily with this forty-year-old man with a BMW convertible sports car and a receding hairline, who invites her to continue the conversation in the peace and quiet of his nearby luxury hotel room, a variation on similar scenes in FAT GIRL (2001) and SEX IS COMEDY (2002).  The protracted dance of seduction sequence is a delicate, difficult, painful, and tense scene that exposes Lili’s psychological hesitation and confusion, presented in real time with long, silent pauses, expressing a combination of angst, despair, and desire, really hoping he would educate her, turning into a cat and mouse game of feigning both interest and disinterest, where she is caustically sharp-tongued and quick-witted, offering a steady stream of insults, yet still balancing an adolescent’s awkwardness and burgeoning sex appeal.  For Maurice, something of an aging, chauvinistic playboy, it’s all about the male conquest, finding her a sexually captivating temptress, but he takes his time, probing through her defensive posture with carefully timed flattery and love chatter, indicating she is built “like a real woman,” eventually groping her for his own solo satisfaction, which she finds amusing, but it’s a humiliating and degrading experience, as he never even acknowledges her, blind to her individuality, defined only by her looks.  Shot on 35mm by Laurent Dailland, the use of cinematic close-ups on a women’s breasts and face keep women confined to the image of a sexual object.  Nonetheless, she learns from the experience and wants to see him again, perhaps hoping for some form of mutual acknowledgement.  By the time she and her brother arrive back home in the light of day, her father physically brutalizes her, an emotionally impactful moment that only accentuates the psychological degradation.  Her mother just stays out of it, never intervening, which only alienates her daughter even further, where the family dysfunction just adds another layer of agonizing confusion, which only amplifies her need for independence.  For Breillat, the male imagination views women as unknowable, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, often wanting to beat women into submission in order to maintain patriarchal control.  All the more reason for Lili to want someone who actually cares about her, spending some time just walking around the beach with Maurice, finding an isolated cove where things get heated, but shame and guilt make her indecisive and she finally refuses to give herself to Maurice and instead pleasures him, shown in real-time sex, but Maurice is getting a little irritated that she continually rejects his advances.  It’s his lack of respect that opens her eyes, finally realizing that she’ll never matter to him, a discovery that is in some ways liberating, as this opens the door for an experience with someone closer to her own age, Bertrand (Olivier Parnière), a gangly red-headed guy hanging around the beach with his family, bright (an egghead), not particularly good looking (described as hideous), and somewhat dull, where he’s been spending his vacation reading Dostoyevksy’s The Idiot, yet he jumps at the opportunity to have sex with her, with Lili finally realizing you don’t have to care, just enjoy the experience, all set up by the music of teen idol Ricky Nelson - I'll Walk Alone YouTube (2:39), an affirmation that she can finally just be herself and not have to worry about the judgements and expectations of others.  Sexual relationships are not just a loss of virginity, but a path to knowledge, an expression of who she is becoming as a woman, with the ending reflecting Lili’s newly discovered subjectivity, where a freeze frame on the final shot is a reference to the iconic image of Jean-Pierre Léaud at the end of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) (1959), suggesting she is defiantly where she wants to be.  

36 Fillette Uncut Full Movie Watch Online HD Eng Subs  Effed Up Movies (1:24:10)