“Eros and Thanatos, sitting in a tree”, fumbling, groping, and pulling away. This is the psycho-sexual world offered to us by French auteur Catherine Breillat; a controversial figure in European cinema, both celebrated and castigated for her “shock jock and cock-block” sensibility. In a career that has truly spanned the decades, Breillat has cast an unwavering eye at the subjects of sex and desire, of violence and power. This week, the boys go eyes deep; taking a long, hard look at two of her most notorious films: A Real Young Girl (1976) and Fat Girl (2001), with digressions towards Romance, Bluebeard, 36 Fillette and Anatomy of Hell. But could they keep (it) up?
