A Review by Dr. Joseph Suglia
Added 11/13/2009
A MA SOEUR concerns, perhaps, the fertilizing intervention of the stranger, the intrusion of strangeness into the familiar. Anais sees her violation---and the destabilization of her life---as necessary: this is the most subversive thought in Breillat's film. Why else would she protect the werewolf who rapes her and murders her mother and sister? Throughout the film, Anais prays for a rapist werewolf, a loup-garou, to take away her virginity---and thus prevent her from getting her heart broken. Her sister Roxane is the real tragic figure: she is spiritually wounded by the Italian gigolo who absconds with her virginity. This does not happen to Anais. Her first sexual engagement is with one impossible to love. Much of the film is oriented around the sister--even the title in French bears this out ("To my sister"). Anais is merely the voyeuse, the watcher, the observer---she only becomes humanized and sexualized with the intrusion of the stranger. (One recalls the excruciatingly long scene in which she watches her sister coupling with the lothario.) The film is shocking not merely in what it shows, but in what it implies. It concerns, I believe, the making-foreign of the proper---the intervention of foreignness which allows the Anais to connect to her burgeoning sexuality and to liberate herself from her slavish dependency on the sister, previously her life's focus.
This film should be watched together with its magisterial counterpart, BREVE TRAVERSEE, also directed by Breillat in 2002. BREVE TRAVERSEE is equally controlled, but even more subtle and more acute.
Dr. Joseph Suglia
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Novel and noteworthy
Added 7/23/2009
The Bottom Line:
The film which convinced me that Catherine Breillat could spin her considerable insight into sexual politics into an incisive and engaging film, Fat Girl is a very interesting take on sex and relationships which should not only keep you interested throughout its short running time, but show you a story you're unlikely to see in any other film.
3.5/4
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So many movies in one!
Added 7/22/2009
So originally you seem to be presented with another coming of age movie. It moves on to explore other themes such as sibling rivalry and sexuality. The movie is beautiful to watch. The long drawn out scenes allow a complete story to be told. You can examine a situation clearly and fully. It does move slow, but I was told that the ending was something that could not be missed...and wow...fantastic! Brilliant film, but the artistic nature of it may not appeal to all.
If you enjoy movies that are more about the words spoken than fast paced action, this will work for you.
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Worth Seeing
Added 1/4/2009
This is less of a story than a character study of two sullen teenage siblings: a withdrawn, overweight thirteen-year-old (Reboux) and her beautiful, shallow elder sister (Mesquida). The sparse plot primarily concentrates on the complex, contradictory relationship between the two sisters, which is strained by a fling with a young Italian man (Rienzo) that the latter indulges in while their family is on vacation. The deliberate pace of this film is less a means to relate a story than to showcase some very fine performances. Reboux is especially impressive - she hasn't a single counterfeit gesture, and her delivery is entirely genuine. A brutal, unpredictable ending does little to provide any additional insight to the characters, which are acutely presented and barely developed. Breillat evinces a keen understanding of adolescent sexuality and interpersonal fallacies, which results in an exposition that's prosaic rather than sentimental.
Like most of Criterion's releases, the audiovisual quality of this disc is exceptional. The English-language subtitles can be disabled, and the soundtrack is available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, both of which yield excellent results on different hardware. The main menu features a close-up of Reboux, singing one of the depressive little songs that Breillat wrote for her character; other menus present CUs of stills from the film as their backdrops.
Breillat has quite a lot to say about her film, its characters and themes and her filmmaking technique, and in the behind-the-scenes featurette and two interviews on this disc, she is granted plenty of time to do so. On-set footage and Breillat's own account portray her as calculating, quick to cultivate a forceful, almost combative relationship with her cast if circumstances necessitate this. The workprint of an alternate ending is included and explained at length by the director. Breillat is equally eloquent and pretentious - while she isn't the great auteur she seems to regard herself as at times, her work is unique and worthy of consideration. The second of the two interviews was shot at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival where "Fat Girl" premiered, and an edited portion of this interview was broadcast on German TV. In it, she explains her characters and her working relationships with Reboux and Mesquida in exhaustive detail.
Theatrical trailers for both the U.S. and French markets are included. The U.S. trailer was edited by Cowboy Pictures, and is quite good; during their brief existence as a distributor of foreign films, Cowboy produced quite a lot of these (their trailer for Kurosawa's "Cure" is far better than any of its Japanese equivalents). The French trailer is quite mediocre, and doesn't convey the milieu of the film at all.
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Not sure I understand why it's so controversial...
Added 10/10/2008
Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2001)
So I've now finally seen a Catherine Breillat film. And it's been a month, and I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about it. For a film that runs less than ninety minutes, it tends to the long-winded and didactic. On the other hand, it's one of the few serious films to treat adolescent sexuality with the directness (and, in some perverse way, the reverence) it deserves. On the third hand (can I borrow one of your hands?), Breillat, in her quest for realism of the body, throws out realism of the emotions altogether; in some ways it's a filmed version of one of those awful novels where characters are laughing one second, crying the next, and then full of gritty determination-- and dry cheeks-- and instant later. The characters put on and take off emotions as if they were underwear to be paired with a particularly odd-colored dress. The fourth hand? Well, we'll give that to the ending, which I have since found out (thanks to reading many reviews and a couple of flame wars on IMDB) is considered "shocking", "unrealistic", and "too pat". I, ever the contrarian, found it none of those things a month before I read all this; in fact, it was the only ending that made sense, given much of the dialogue that had come before it.
The plot concerns two sisters, fifteen-year-old nymphette Elena (Sheitan's Roxane Mesquida) and twelve-year-old Anais (Anais Reboux), who's supposed to be the plain one of the two. (I disagreed throughout the film, as I often do; the whole reason I got so confused by The Truth About Cats and Dogs was that Janeane Garofalo was supposed to be the plain one. I don't get it.) The two of them and their mother (Arsinee Khanjian of Code Inconnu) are on holiday at the beach for the summer. Anais resolves to lose her virginity; Elena just wants to explore, while keeping hers intact. There are a number of discussions about this, and it's during these discussions (which also point to the "long-winded" and "didactic" charges above) that the emotional instability appears; the two girls are picking at one another one second and the closest of confidantes the next. How does that work, exactly? Oh, I forgot: it doesn't in real life. In any case, Elena finds herself a boyfriend, the older, slicker Fernando (My House in Umbria's Libero de Rienzo), while Anais, who, again, is supposed to be the plain one, has to imagine trysts with landmarks and lawn furniture. To go farther would be entering spoiler country, but I think you can plot the course pretty easily from there.
There are good things about Fat Girl, and there are bad things about it. I can't make a recommendation either way; I think this is one of those movies that everyone who sees it will feel slightly differently about, assuming they don't tar it with the overly-wide (and inappropriate, given the treatment of the subject matter) brush of obscenity. What you take away from it will, ultimately, be based on what you bring to it. Proceed accordingly. ***
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A Review by Dr. Joseph Suglia
Added 11/13/2009
A MA SOEUR concerns, perhaps, the fertilizing intervention of the stranger, the intrusion of strangeness into the familiar. Anais sees her violation---and the destabilization of her life---as necessary: this is the most subversive thought in Breillat's film. Why else would she protect the werewolf who rapes her and murders her mother and sister? Throughout the film, Anais prays for a rapist werewolf, a loup-garou, to take away her virginity---and thus prevent her from getting her heart broken. Her sister Roxane is the real tragic figure: she is spiritually wounded by the Italian gigolo who absconds with her virginity. This does not happen to Anais. Her first sexual engagement is with one impossible to love. Much of the film is oriented around the sister--even the title in French bears this out ("To my sister"). Anais is merely the voyeuse, the watcher, the observer---she only becomes humanized and sexualized with the intrusion of the stranger. (One recalls the excruciatingly long scene in which she watches her sister coupling with the lothario.) The film is shocking not merely in what it shows, but in what it implies. It concerns, I believe, the making-foreign of the proper---the intervention of foreignness which allows the Anais to connect to her burgeoning sexuality and to liberate herself from her slavish dependency on the sister, previously her life's focus.
This film should be watched together with its magisterial counterpart, BREVE TRAVERSEE, also directed by Breillat in 2002. BREVE TRAVERSEE is equally controlled, but even more subtle and more acute.
Dr. Joseph Suglia
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Novel and noteworthy
Added 7/23/2009
The Bottom Line:
The film which convinced me that Catherine Breillat could spin her considerable insight into sexual politics into an incisive and engaging film, Fat Girl is a very interesting take on sex and relationships which should not only keep you interested throughout its short running time, but show you a story you're unlikely to see in any other film.
3.5/4
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
So many movies in one!
Added 7/22/2009
So originally you seem to be presented with another coming of age movie. It moves on to explore other themes such as sibling rivalry and sexuality. The movie is beautiful to watch. The long drawn out scenes allow a complete story to be told. You can examine a situation clearly and fully. It does move slow, but I was told that the ending was something that could not be missed...and wow...fantastic! Brilliant film, but the artistic nature of it may not appeal to all.
If you enjoy movies that are more about the words spoken than fast paced action, this will work for you.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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