I have a feeling if I were to sit down with Fat Girl writer/director Catherine Breillat and begin questioning her regarding her film it would ultimately end in a stalemate. I get the impression I’ve learned a lot about the highly touted auteur simply by watching one of her films and the minimal number of included special features on this Criterion Blu-ray release. On one hand, this says a lot about her as a director — I don’t like referring to a director as an auteur unless I truly believe they have a signature style — but at the same time I look at it as both a positive and a negative.
Let me begin by saying I would never recommend anyone purchase this Blu-ray. I’m not one of those reviewers that believes the signature Criterion “C” always denotes an absolute must buy and I would suggest you stay away from anyone that consistently recommends a Criterion disc as it will ultimately bankrupt you, leaving you with a shelf of once-watched movies, only half of which you actually should have purchased. That said, Fat Girl is a film that will certainly open your eyes to a kind of director we don’t hear from too often.
Breillat’s film tests a movie watcher’s boundaries. Just how much are you willing to accept. For me, I feel I have damn near seen it all when it comes to questionable material (except The Human Centipede, you can keep that for yourself) so very little surprises me, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t taken aback when 14-year-old Anais Reboux, playing the film’s 12-year-old “title” character, bares her breasts or when 20-year-old Roxane Mesquida, playing Anais’ 15-year-old sister Elena, is statutorily raped in a lengthy sequence that could only have ended the way it did.
It would also be ignorant of me to leave out the fact Elena’s boyfriend Fernando (Libero De Rienzo) is seen twice with a full-on erection as the two have anal sex, and again when Elena is officially de-flowered. I mention this because I believe it’s important to give you the full breadth of what to expect, but at the same time I don’t think this film can be summed up merely by the parts that may shock some, be condemned by others and be argued as “art” and not “smut” by yet another portion of the film society.
Before writing about this film I took to the IMDb message boards, a den where you will most often find detractors of a film ritually flamed in gang related fashion. Considering Fat Girl was released in 2001, it has a fair share of fans and their arguments have been well established, practiced and fleshed out… no pun intended. Obviously, the more interesting comments were those related to discussions as to whether or not this film should be considered child pornography. The immediate argument against it is pornography is initially created as a means to titillate its audience, since Breillat didn’t make this film with those intentions people believe it therefore can’t be child pornography. It’s a ludicrous argument considering I could then take thousands of pictures of naked children, compile them on my computer and disseminate them on the internet saying they are merely beautiful pictures of the human form. If you don’t think the FBI will come knocking on my door, guess again, no matter my intention.
Personally, I don’t condemn Breillat for her film, though it was weird to watch the special features and learn Mesquida was uncomfortable with the fact De Rienzo wasn’t going to be wearing any underwear in their scene. Briellat’s response, and I’m paraphrasing, “If she doesn’t complain to me about it there is no problem.” It’s also odd to hear Reboux say she initially didn’t want to show her breasts on camera, but she says she did it for Breillat. Make of those facts what you will.
What does any of this have to do with the film? I’m sure, if you’ve gotten this far, this is exactly what you’re wondering. Well, this is why I don’t condemn Breillat — though, if I wanted to spoil the film, her ending is awful — because her film is about sexuality and a young girl’s passage out of virginity and several of the aspects that surrounds it. Breillat has captured her intended subject matter with brutal honesty as we witness a horny college-aged student saying whatever is necessary to seduce a young 15-year-old girl into having sex with him. Meanwhile, only a few feet away in the other bed, is Anais, listening to every deflection of Fernando’s advances until her sister ultimately succumbs to anal sex.
The two sisters talk of what they expect from their first time with a boy and all of this happens while they’re on vacation with their blissfully unaware parents. Elena is the “pretty one” between the two sisters. Her expectation of her first time with a boy is one of a magical and meaningful moment between two people that love each other. On the flipside, Anais hopes her first time is with someone she doesn’t care for at all, she wants it to happen and be over with, a fact that Breillat hammers home in the film’s final moments in a gesture of brute force rather than the explicit sense of realism she has achieved throughout.
Yet, none of my compliments are meant to hold this film in very high regard. Nothing is achieved with this picture. Nothing we didn’t know or would have never known comes to light, and Breillat’s sense of realism is just that, but there is no greater truth in her film’s honest portrayal of two sisters as much as there simply is a story of two blossoming young girls with inattentive parents. So what? Please, intrigue me. Give me something of interest to take away instead of a “shocking” final five minutes that completely come out of nowhere and make me never want to watch your movie again.
I mentioned the special features earlier and they irked me even more. Why Criterion felt it was necessary to offer a Blu-ray re-issue of their previously released 2004 DVD edition is a mystery to me. Outside of two unrevealing video interviews with Breillat and a behind-the-scenes featurette I’ve already mentioned this release is bare bones. It’s the reason I believe Breillat and I would never come to a conclusion when discussing this film. If it was worth talking about she would be talking. There would be a commentary track or a new, Criterion specific interview.
This reminds me of a quote Julia Leigh, writer/director of the awful Cannes Film Festival entry Sleeping Beauty said in the film’s press notes. “It is dangerous for me to explain the meaning of my work,” Leigh said. “Like gouging out my own eye. Like pinning down the viewer and gouging out their eye.” Well, as much as I would have liked Leigh to explain her work the same goes for Breillat, but there is no explanation and I am begging to have my eye gouged out. However, I will say a direct comparison to Leigh is not fair to Breillat, at least the latter had the sense to direct a distinct narrative.
I imagine if I said any of this to Breillat, she would roll her eyes, perhaps not even say a word, turn and walk away. I imagine in her mind the comment would be, He just doesn’t get it, so what’s the use? Fair enough. All the better. I can now say I’ve seen her film at the same time as saying I will never watch it again. We can both walk away satisfied.
