Romance (1999) - Catherine Breillat

excerpt from "Senses of Cinema" on Catherine Breillat:

"But it was with the release of Romance in 1999 that Breillat would face censorship internationally, when the film was either banned altogether in some countries, or given an X rating. It was a situation Breillat spoke out about when she declared that, "censorship was a male preoccupation, and that the X certificate was linked to the X chromosome." Breillat’s statement was echoed in the French poster for the film, which features a naked woman with her hand between her legs. A large red X is printed across the image, thus revealing the source of the trouble: a woman in touch with her own sense of sexual pleasure.

Anatomie de l'Enfer AKA Anatomy of Hell (2003) - Catherine Breillat

"A lonely and dejected woman (Amira Casar) learns that only when all inhibitions are cast aside will she be able to truly understand the truth about how men see women in this erotically charged exploration of sexuality from controversial director Catherine Breillat. Teetering on the edge of overwhelming ennui, the woman pays a man (Rocco Siffredi) to join her for a daring, four-day exploration of sexuality in which both reject all convention and smash all boundaries while locked away from society in an isolated estate. Only when the man and woman confront the most unspeakable aspects of their sexuality will they have a pure understanding of how the sexes view one another."

Une vraie jeune fille AKA A Real Young Girl (1976) - Catherine Breillat

"Une Vraie Jeune Fille, Catherine Breillat's first feature film, was shelved for 25 years, apparently because the moral/aesthetic disgust couldn't be overcome at the time. It was released for the first time this year, and immediately re-ignited the scandal occasioned by Breillat's last feature, Romance."
- Kay Armatage, Toronto International Film Festival Catalogue

The story centres on Alice Bonnard, a young girl attending Saint-Sulvien Girl's College, and takes place during a summer in the turbulent sixties. Alice comes homes to spend her holidays with her parents in the Landes region. They run a sawmill where they employ a young man, Jim. Business isn't going well, although Mr. and Mrs. Bonnard are too proud to admit it and Jim's nonchalant attitude about his job doesn't help things. Alice is attracted to Jim, but she's too scared to let him know it, believing that as far as he's concerned she doesn't exist. Her tumescent sexuality begins to obsess her. She becomes fascinated with the excretions, juices and smells of her own body as well as with the slimy oozings and putrid detritus of the natural world. The film gives few clues to distinguish the girl's fantasies from the events of her life. This is fitting, as the entire film revolves around the girl and her own perceptions. The heightened realism of the direction and cinematography produces a text that refuses either to accuse or to exploit.
(from link)

Sex Is Comedy (2002) - Catherine Breillat

From The New York Times:

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: October 20, 2004

Thanks to movies like "36 Fillette," "Romance" and "Fat Girl," Catherine Breillat has acquired a reputation for both fearlessness and perversity. Her two most recent movies, "Anatomy of Hell" and "Sex Is Comedy," arriving in New York theaters within a week of each other, will no doubt extend that reputation, though in different ways. The newer movie, "Anatomy of Hell," which opened last Friday, takes her fascination with female sexuality to a new extreme of literal-minded explicitness. "Sex Is Comedy," which was completed in 2002 and which opens at Film Forum in Manhattan today, is much less graphic than "Anatomy," and it is probably Ms. Breillat's most restrained and self-critical film. There is less nudity and less on-screen sex than in her previous movies, but a good deal more self-exposure.