Well, we’re at that point again! Without fail, every few months the internet pops off with some discourse about how films shouldn’t have sex or nudity, and if they do, they must absolutely — with no exceptions — advance The Plot. People love to talk about The Plot. No Plot, and we’ve got a problem, people! But this push to exclude nudity or, god forbid, an old romp in the hay, ultimately feels like a weird misguided plea to return to… well, the Hays Code. Wait… is that where the code got its name???
There have always been puritan reactionaries to controversial art. But it’s just strange seeing it come from young people instead of old right wing conservative Christian types. Maybe it has to do with Gen Z’s overwhelming bombardment of sex and porn. The internet and social media have probably rotted and twisted their perceptions and relationship to sex and the body in ways previously unimaginable. That’s sad. But the reaction to eradicate sex and nudity from art is baby-brained.
But then I always wonder how many people truly feel this way or if I just got locked into some terrible corner of the internet as some sort of cosmic punishment. Ask some random person on the street and they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe it’s just an online echo chamber. But then again, that is where young people exist these days: online!
So this week’s movie, A Real Young Girl (1976), Catherine Breillat’s first film, is for them; those good young puritans who want movies to be sterile and sexless. God bless them, and their pure little hearts.
The Quick Gist
A Real Young Girl follows an adolescent’s sexual awakening while on summer vacation at her parent’s house in the country.
A Real Young Girl
Okay, so let’s just get this out of the way. I’m generally not into trigger warnings, but this movie definitely will not be for everyone. It’s provocative, perverse, boundary pushing, transgressive, and extremely graphic. (Breillat’s filmography in a nutshell.) And it may offend some sensibilities. But there’s no doubt artistic merit, and it’s rather compelling. Some really great cinematic moments. And for the plot-pilled freaks, her sexuality and escapades fully inform her character, and even pushes the (sparse) plot forward. Thank god. But don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
Alice, an adolescent in the midst of a sexual awakening during the ‘60s, spends the summer at her parent’s country home. She’s mesmerized by her body and the effect it has on people. She spends her time exploring herself and traveling into town to blatantly lust after Jim, her father’s handsome employee, who drives a bubble gum pink car fit for Barbie. She daydreams, has surreal fantasies, and entertains some dark urges. The line between reality and fantasy blurs, leaving us to wonder what’s real and what isn’t.
There’s almost a hostility to her awakening. A sense of danger. Like she’s daring the men who respond to her new maturity to act on their dark desires, despite her being a minor. She derives a real power from it. And it’s like she’s also daring herself, too. She pushes her own limits as well as those around her. Yet, all the while, we feel she is somehow in control of the situation. She knows her boundaries, and what she wants — or at least she thinks she does. Maybe that’s her youthful confidence playing tricks on us. Not that this justifies the lurid glances from her perverse father, or the nasty men who lust after her. But it gives her a complexity, nuance, and agency we’re forced to reckon with. She’s not a damsel in distress, tied to the train tracks. Well, there is a scene with Alice on the train tracks, but uh… it’s not exactly what you think. And maybe that’s part of Breillat’s point. She doesn’t need to be saved. In fact, she’s quite enjoying herself…
Breillat is so interested the tangible body. Skin, sweat, lips, genitalia. And all the fluids that come with it — puke, earwax, semen, or whatever other excretion she can come up with. It’s an inextricable obsession with beauty and filth, love and hate for the body, for desire, the sacred and the profane. Those shameful things people aren’t supposed to admit they’ve thought about. Breillat forces us to take stock that women, young women too, engage with these taboo thoughts and urges, which can be dangerous, especially as a young person with no experience in life. It can be dangerous, life-altering. But these feelings and wants are a reality.
I was really taken by A Real Young Girl as I had never seen anything so direct and honest about female sexuality. It could be mistaken for porn, but in my experience it was about truth, about the fact that women are truly, beautifully horny! It was a correction of the sex perception about women because of it I felt my coyness – and also respect for Catherine. - Jane Campion, Sight and Sound
This movie is intimidating and aggressive. It’s a trait that Catherine Breillat is very well known for. She makes boundary pushing, taboo films. The actor playing Alice, Charlotte Alexandra, was 20 years old at the time of filming, but that didn’t stop A Real Young Girl from being banned in many countries, not being widely released until 2000. And she’s still going strong! Breillat’s new film, fittingly titled Last Summer, keeps in line with the rest of her filmography. A film about an older woman who becomes involved with a young man.
So to wrap up, this film is tough. Breillat shocks, subverts, and purposefully pushes you to feel uncomfortable. She tests you, works to elicit emotion, from excitement to disgust to fear, wrapping it all into one. Her grasp is firm. It’s a powerful first film from an uncompromising director. A must watch for those whose sensibilities allow it. Enjoy!
Password to watch on the site: breillat23
Or request access to the Plex server here for best quality.
Want to chat about the movie with fellow film freaks? Then check out the Discord!