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.

Around a Small Mountain (36 vues du Pic Saint Loup)

 

Director Jacques Rivette

Rivette with Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellito

Birkin and Castellito

Rivette with Jane Birkin

Rivette and Birkin from Love On the Ground (1984)

Jacques Rivette

AROUND A SMALL MOUNTAIN (36 vues du Pic Saint Loup)               B+                              France  Italy  (84 mi)  2009  d: Jacques Rivette

All of our dragons are really princesses waiting for us to free them.                                        —Jean-Luc Godard, probably stolen, of course

A pensive film that offers a philosophical view on creativity and the meaning of life, one that suggests every creative thought has the potential for change, to offer the world something new, which has a healing or beneficial value that wasn’t there before it was expressed.  This small film may be a metaphor for the director’s own personal testament, as he’s been a filmmaker of the first order for nearly half a century, known for his lengthy and ponderous films, but also for bringing a literate maturity to the French New Wave, where he was one of the original founders who also wrote extensive film criticism essays for Cahiers du Cinéma, an artist with the dual role of making but also critiquing and analyzing films.  Always something of an outsider whose independence of vision could be breathtaking, his style, including the length of time between films, never fit into conventional genres.  Even his initial film, PARIS BELONGS TO US (1961), shot on weekends with no money and no sets on donated or leftover film stock, makes extensive documentary style use of the city itself, revealing the city as a living force, but also uses a maze-like narrative to create a world where characters enter, then disappear, often without a trace, in much the same way that thousands of strangers enter our perception and consciousness every day, only to disappear without a trace.  Rivette seems haunted by memory in much the same way, as its easy to lose sight of the importance of things, where time has a strange way of shifting our priorities.  This is a film that looks back, that dwells on the lingering effect of regrets that have a crippling way of accumulating weight over time, but also looks straight ahead with an almost naïve and childlike fascination in anticipation of what new ideas will be discovered and how they may change the direction of our own lives.  Rivette is a Renaissance man whose films have been intellectual and cultural markers through the years, where his role has been planting the seeds for new generations to come.  But at this stage in his life as one of the oldest living filmmakers, he may have a tendency to look back and see how the world around him was shaped and formed and what part he played in it. 

Always at home in the theater, using a stable of actors who lived and thrived under his leadership, Rivette was never afraid to tackle the great classics, but seemed more interested in exploring with great curiosity the fickle and strange nature of human relationships.  Not only actors, Pascal Bonitzer, former writer for André Téchiné in the 80’s, has now, along with Christine Laurent, collaborated with Rivette in writing his films for the past twenty years, showing great familiarity as well as staying power, Bonitzer since LOVE ON THE GROUND (1984) and Laurent since THE GANG OF FOUR  (1989).  Rivette has indicated that the idea for this film came to him while making LA BELLE NOISEUSE (1991), a nearly four hour extravaganza consumed with the nature of painting, and features a similar curiosity about the effect and influence of art.  Of interest, Jane Birkin starred in that film, but they haven’t worked together again until this film, perhaps the shortest in Rivette’s career, where she returns to her small, family run circus after an absence of a decade or more, a broken down venture that might seem more appropriate in the era of Fellini’s LA STRADA (1954).  The film opens with a curious little scene of Birkin stranded alone along an empty stretch of highway, her car with the hood up, where she attempts to flag down another car for help, but it drives right by only to return, where the driver of a fancy convertible sports car gets out, checks a few wires and connections and immediately gets her car working again, exiting without ever saying a word, all captured in a single shot.  The economy utilized here feels effortless.  Later they meet again in a small nearby town where she invites Vittorio (Sergio Castellito) to the circus, where he is one of only a handful of customers, but takes great pleasure first in choosing his seat in a near empty arena and then in the charm and antiquity of the comical clowns routine, the only one to laugh heartily, which endears him, of course, to the actual performers.  Vittorio decides to spend a few days just hanging around, attempting to spark a conversation with Birkin, whose mind lies elsewhere, so instead he develops a wonderful rapport with Alexandre (André Marcon), exploring the endless variations of his clown routine. 

From behind a closed curtain, the performers enter in silence, always through the exact same curtain.  Throughout the course of the film we see a constant repetition of this same act, which begins to feel like a newborn birth, as each time a performer steps out in front of an audience, it is for the very first time.  Rivette shows a variation on several routines, just changing them slightly, but also adds new ones, which seem to be whatever each individual actor could learn over a short period of time, where despite the artificiality of a theatrical act, it always has an improvised feel to it.  At one point, the performers enter and re-enter that same curtain speaking directly to the camera, one after another, in a rapid fire montage of proverbial expressions, each declared like some sort of battle cry.  This reminds us that it is the theater, that nothing is real, yet something of consequence and meaning comes out of it, something that may influence our lives.  The same goes for the performers, as while they go through the stage routines which have a claustrophobic air about them, they also live out their lives under that same stifling confinement where there are no secrets, as everyone knows everybody else’s business.  In this way Vittorio gets drawn into Birkin’s private life, but only from a distance, by what he hears from others around her.  Still, he offers his own voice as to small, possible changes in the routines which might improve them, as if he’s somehow become the voice of the art critic.  This strange interplay between performers, an actual family, and an audience that provides feedback, provides a strange kind of symmetry that becomes electrically charged when working together that none would have on their own.  This is the nature of art, that it doesn’t exist in a vacuum, where someone continually offers some new variation that’s never been done before, which has an impact in people’s lives, even those who helped create it.  Almost impossible, by the way, not ot think of Fellini’s miraculous final scene in 8 ½ (1963).  This is a wonderful little film that has a strangeness all its own, as characters literally walk in and out of the screen and each other’s lives seemingly at will, coming and going, always moving in and out of a world defined as much by their past experiences as whatever the future may bring.  For Rivette, the future is a performance that has never been seen, as if it’s his frail voice speaking personally, as there must be many projects that hold his attention that age, declining health, and time simply won’t allow him to experience.  But performers continue to step out from behind the curtain, and the world awaits every new inspiration.