Anatomy of Hell
From film to film, Catherine Breillat has tirelessly explored the way sexuality slips into the interstices of existence. By giving in to their impulses and fantasies, Breillat's characters defy appearances, conformism and social norms. Refusing a stifling banality, they try to be alive at all costs, at the risk of losing themselves along the way and suffering. While the director has just presented her new film at the Cannes Film Festival, this cycle brings together seven of her major films, from 36 Fillette to Une vieille maîtresse, in order to delve into an unclassifiable work, which confronts supposed taboos as few have done, and moreover from a feminine angle.
On the verge of boredom, a lonely and depressed woman pays a gay man to join her in a daring four-day exploration of sexuality in which they both reject all conventions and break all boundaries, locked away from society in an isolated estate. Only by confronting the most unmentionable aspects of their sexuality will the man and woman come to a pure understanding of how the sexes perceive each other.
Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat is a French director, screenwriter, and novelist. In 1972, she acted alongside her older sister, actress Marie-Hélène Breillat, in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. In the mid-1970s, during the wave of "X" and erotic cinema, a producer offered her the opportunity to direct a film based on her book Le soupirail. The film, A Real Young Girl, which contains pornographic scenes, was not released until 2000 as its original producer went bankrupt. After a second film, Night After Night, she paused her directing career to write screenplays for others, notably for Federico Fellini and Maurice Pialat. She returned to directing with 36 Fillette, also adapted from one of her novels, and Dirty Like an Angel. Already appreciated by critics, she finally gained public recognition with the success of Perfect Love in 1996, followed by Romance in 1999. In 2007, she directed The Last Mistress, which was selected for the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2023, she was once again selected with the film Last Summer.
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