Directed by Catherine Breillat • 1976 • France
Starring Charlotte Alexandra, Hiram Keller, Rita Maiden
Filmed in 1976 but not released until 2000, A REAL YOUNG GIRL is Catherine Breillat’s taboo-busting directorial debut and one of the boldest explorations of female sexuality ever committed to celluloid. In adapting her own novel, Breillat unflinchingly depicts the dark desires of Alice (Charlotte Alexandra), a rural adolescent whose uninhibited sexual experimentation troubles her parents (Rita Maiden and Bruno Balp) and augurs doom for her first lover (Hiram Keller). Originally withheld from theaters due to censorship concerns, GIRL proved itself to be not only ahead of its time but also an audacious trial run for Breillat’s core strategies and themes, including the connection between transgressive fantasy and sober reality.
Up Next in Directed by Catherine Breillat
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Anatomy of Hell
Directed by Catherine Breillat • 2004 • France
Starring Amira Casar, Rocco SiffrediAfter attempting suicide, a young woman (Amira Casar) makes a startling proposition to the man (Rocco Siffredi) who rescued her: she will pay him to watch her naked body over the course of four nights as long as ...
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Nocturnal Uproar
Directed by Catherine Breillat • 1979 • France
Starring Dominique Laffin, Bertrand Bonvoisin, Joe DallesandroCatherine Breillat’s stylistically raw, intellectually daring second feature contains shades of autobiography as it centers on a filmmaker named Solange (Dominique Laffin) whose search f...
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Perfect Love
Directed by Catherine Breillat • 1996 • France
Starring Isabelle Renauld, Francis Renaud, Laura SaglioCatherine Breillat traces the shockingly violent disintegration of a May-December affair in PERFECT LOVE, arguably her most realistic and disturbing study of romance gone wrong. When twice-divo...
