2001 movieRating: 14/20
Plot: While on holiday (cause that's what they call it in Europe), a pair of sisters meet an older law student. He sneaks in to visit the older sister at night while the titular fat girl snoozes or pretends to snooze across the room. Then, a bunch of other things happen.
Matt recommended this one, and I don't know what to think about it. It wasn't something that I enjoyed, but I'm not sure it was made for anybody to enjoy. And it made me a little uncomfortable, but I suspect director Catherine Breillat was trying to make me uncomfortable. I have fuzzy ideas about what this is all about, but I really feel like I need somebody, probably a feminist, to help fill in some gaps for me. I wonder how I'd see this differently if I were a woman. To me, the whole thing seems like one long joke that was never intended to be funny, a joke with the most depressing punchline of all time. I did like the performances. Roxanne Mesquida plays the attractive older sibling. She's cute (and I can type that because she was of age when this was made) and plays this naive-but-doesn't-quite-know-it thing really well. The villain, Libero De Rienzo, was especially scary for me, a guy with three daughters. He's also cute, and I'm not sure whether or not I should be typing that or not. He's almost good enough to allow me to call this a monster movie. And then there's the titular fat girl played by Anais Reboux, a non-professional actress although she did appear in a T.V. movie around the same time as this. Most of this movie is her doing what she's doing on the poster up there, halfway covering her face while her sister is seduced by an older guy on the other side of the bedroom. But her performance is fantastic here, and I'm not just talking about when she's singing about crows eating her worthless lump of raw meat body. There's nothing all that flamboyant in what she does, but there's this depth, this understanding, that makes it a pretty special performance. The tone of the bulk of this is ominous, like the quiet before the storm, and during that storm, Breillat gets a little tricky. She throws an idea at you, makes it stick (for me at least), and then hits you with something shocking and frightening following by something just as shocking and frightening and a little snippet of dialogue that manages to be even more shocking and more frightening than all the other shocking and frightening stuff. This is not a happy movie.
Oops, I don't actually remember recommending this. I think we may have been talking about French directors who make soul-destroying movies that revel in their own lack warmth and humanity, and I pointed it out as an example of that? If that's it, then I probably also mentioned that La Pianiste/The Piano Teacher with Isabel Huppert will make you put your eyes out.
ReplyDeleteI do think there are some really memorable parts to Fat Girl, mostly, like you said, having to do with the main actor's performance. For the record, my wife has a degree in Women's Studies and she's the one who made me watch this. She even sat through it with me even though she'd already seen it. Ditto La Pianiste.
Oops! This isn't the first time I've thought something was being recommended when it really wasn't. Heh.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that I can bump this down a point. I gave it a 15 originally because I didn't want you to think I was unhip.
I can't remember where this was even brought up.
Have you seen 'Hukkle'? If I've never brought that up, I'm recommending that one. And 'Taxidermia' by the same director even though it's not exactly easy viewing.