Catherine Breillat's A Ma Soeur! is a touchingly honest but also highly disturbing account of two French middle-class teenage sisters' family holiday. As sexually explicit as Breillat's earlier picture, Romance, this film focuses on the travails of flabby 12-year-old Anais Pingot (Anais Reboux), who is the bane and the opposite of her glamorous elder sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida). Constantly having to live in the shadow of Elena and being nagged by her workaholic father (Romain Goupil), lonely Anais resorts to eating and her imagination for pleasure. Her 15-year-old... sister, in contrast, is desperate to find romantic love. Their differences are harshly exposed when Elena starts a frantic affair with Italian law student Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). To minimise the risk of being discovered by their parents, Anais accompanies Fernando and Elena throughout their clumsy encounters. She's even present during the pair's sexual experimentation. Anais Reboux's depiction of an introverted young woman is both shocking and true to life, particularly the scene when she swims around a swimming pool kissing and conversing with the pool's diving board and steps as if they were imaginary lovers. The film actually thrives on very little, a simple plot, a 25-minute bedroom scene, and the monotony of the fatal motorway trip home. Like violence itself, the violent ending is a particularly pointless and baffling finale for an otherwise thought-provoking film. On the DVD: A Ma Soeur! on DVD can be viewed with or without English subtitles. The bonus material includes biographies of the leading actors and the director, a theatrical trailer and promotional images from the film. Tom Dawson's excellent notes booklet provide an informed insight into the production of the movie. The anamorphic picture is good, as is the Dolby Stereo soundtrack. --John Galilee [show more]
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Controversial filmmaker Catherine Breillat directs this tale of sexual awakening centred on a twelve-year-old girl and her fifteen-year-old sister. Anaïs is on holiday by the sea with her family when her older sister Elena begins an affair with an Italian law student. The following events, with the student visiting Elena at night and Anaïs watching from the other side of the room, lead to confusion and tragedy.
Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. Anais is twelve and seems to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her large body acts as a protective shield from which she processes the world and her own douleur. Either forced to hide behind the scenes or sometimes simply made an outcast by others, Anais finds herself playing the role of observer. During the annual family summer vacation, Anais has her first brush with sexual awakening, albeit by proxy, via her beautiful fifteen-year-old sister Elena with whom she has a love-hate relationship. At a cafe the two girls meet Fernando, a young law student from Italy. One night, Fernando sneaks into their holiday home and Anais, who shares a room with her sister, watches unnoticed as Fernando and Elena cajole, grapple, romance and submit to passion. In the end Anais turns over and cries herself to sleep. The whole story comes out into the open a few days later when Fernando's mother pays a visit to discuss a missing ring with their mother. The girls' furious mother breaks off their holiday and orders her daughters to pack their things right away. The summer vacation is over, but as they discover on the long, grumpy journey home, the family adventure is not. From France's controversial Catherine Breillat, who directed the provocative and thought-provoking 'Romance', comes her newest examination of female sexuality told from a female point of view... Actors Anais Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Romain Goupil, Arsinee Khanjian, Libero De Rienzo, Laura Betti & Albert Goldberg Director Catherine Breillat Certificate 18 years and over Year 2001 Screen Widescreen 16:9 Anamorphic Languages French - Dolby Digital (2.0) Stereo Subtitles English Duration 1 hour and 30 minutes (approx)
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