Fat girl = For my sister = A ma soeur! [DVD] (E)

Catherine Breillat (Romance, 36 fillette) courts controversy with this starkly compelling coming of age film. Anais (Anais Reboux) is a depressed and overweight thirteen-year-old girl who lives in the shadow of her beautiful and sexually alluring fifteen-year-old sister, Elena. On holiday with their aloof mother and apathetic father, the sisters meet Fernando, a handsome Italian law student who forms an instantaneous attraction to Elena. Elena is aware of her appeal, although naive about the manipulations of men, and yearns to lose her virginity with someone she loves. Fernando, an experienced sexual predator, sets about conquering Elena through coercion, flattery, guilt inducing overtures and the weight of his experience. Whilst Elena vacillates between acquiescence and resistance, Anais is a mute and unwilling witness. As well as displaying in a confronting manner the deflowering of Elena, Breillat also explores the complex relationship between the sisters that oscillates between abuse and affection, displaying several scenes in which they compare their morality and opposing perspectives about love and sex. Breillat successfully interrogates her subject matter of the abject adolescent condition in a powerful manner allowing much room for viewer contemplation. But a shock ending that taps into Anais’ wish-fulfilment in a most brutal fashion, divided audience and critical reaction. In French with English subtitles.