rating:
(out of
4 stars)France, Italy; 2001
Directed by Catherine Breillat; produced by Jean-François Lepetit; written by Catherine Breillat
Starring Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo, Arsinée Khanjian, Romain Goupil, Laura Betti
Catherine Breillat's 'À ma soeur' ('Fat Girl') shows the female sexuality once again. Her worlds are inhabited by unworthy men, in this case an Italian student, the father of two young girls (12 and 15) and a character introduced in the finale. The film is intense and Breillat makes her point, but from time to time she goes over the top. The last moments could have had a great emotional impact, now I laughed a little at the way a message was pushed down my throat.
Roxane Mesquida is Elena, the beautiful older sister, Anaïs Reboux is the fat younger one, Anaïs. Together with their mother and distant father they are on vacation. We meet the girls talking about losing their virginity. Elena has the romantic picture, Anaïs is more down to earth: her first time should be with someone she does not love, since he will only break her heart. They meet the Italian student (Libero De Rienzo), much older, who eventually does every possible thing to talk Elena into bed.
The scenes with Elena and the student, Fernando, are uncompromising in the usual Breillat way, both in dialogue as in what we get to see. Most male viewers will be ashamed of Fernando, there is nothing he will not say to get what he wants. Breillat clearly loathes this person, and what he represents. She is also critical about Elena and therefore young female teenagers. She has the wrong ideas about sex and love, and advantage is easily taken in those situations.
Both these kind of characters, as seen through the eyes of Anaïs, exist in real life too. For some parts, parents are to be blamed, and Breillat points this out in a couple of effective scenes. The father is complaining all the time and the mother takes no responsibilities as a parent, it seems. Anaïs is really overweight, but she is allowed to eat anything; the sisters can fight in really mean ways, but no parent stops them; Elena brings home Fernando, and not a single word is spoken about it, even though the age difference is quite big; instead of talking about the incidents that follow, the mother simply stops speaking to her daughters; later, Fernando's mother shows up blaming not herself for her sons behaviour, but Elena and her mother.
All these moments effectively make Breillat's point. The ending is a mystery to me, since it almost destroys all of that. Maybe she really wanted to blame men for the bad things in the world after all. The atmosphere in these last fifteen minutes is haunting, kuddos for that, but the climax is terribly out of place. There is some irony in it, which seems to break down some of the opinions earlier stated by Anaïs, but Breillat could have done this in a lot of different, better ways. I was left with an unsatisfying result.