A Real Young Girl (1975)

Catherine Breillat's controversial first film centers around the sexual awakening of a young girl on summer vacation.

Breillat's first act of defiance in film, and the recent stroke that has possibly ended her career.

"All true artists are hated. Only conformists are ever adored."--Catherine Breillat.

A Real Young Girl (1976) is a film about a teenage girl's sexual awakening in a sexually-repressed world. Controversial French director Catherine Breillat is better known for her films Romance (1999), Fat Girl (2001), and Anatomy of Hell (2004). Infamous for her graphic depictions of sexuality and violence, Brief Crossing (Breve Traversee) (2001) is perhaps the best introduction for those uninitiated in Breillat's brilliant genius. Based on her fourth novel, Le Soupirail (The Air Duct), A Real Young Girl (Une Vraie Jeune Fille) is Breillat's first act of defiance in French film. After the French censors gave this film a X rating, it was banned as pornography until 1999, and it is not among Breillat's best films. However, that is no reason to avoid it. Set in 1963, the unpolished film tells the story of moody 17-year-old Alice's sexual awakening as told from her perspective. While attending a French boarding school, Alice (Charlotte Alexandra) not only becomes preoccupied with her body's changes, but with her new sexual thoughts. While visiting her parents (Bruno Balp, Rita Maiden) on vacation, Alice escapes the domestic routine imposed upon her by her mother by immersing herself in her sexuality, recording her thoughts in her diary. Initially, she confesses she is afraid of her body, but soon she abandons her panties, bicycles bare-bottomed into town, and finds herself flirting with young men in bars and cafes, as well as with a worker (Jim) in her father's sawmill. Testing her newly discovered sexuality, she flaunts her breasts at boys, and taunts her parents with her now lack of inhibition. Alice's new behaviour upsets her parents. Her mother calls her a whore. The film fades to a black screen, against which the pop song "Suis-je une petite fille" (Am I a little girl) concludes the story. This film not only established Breillat as a defiant French provocateur, but sparked the firestorm of critical hostility against her work, which is reason enough to experience this film. It triumphs in exposing some hard truths about human sexuality.

(Recently Catherine Breillat suffered a stroke (her second) while filming "Barbe bleue," and as of the date of this Review, it is uncertain whether she will ever make another film. While I'm by no means a religious man, my thoughts, prayers, and get-well wishes are with Breillat, and it is my hope she will make a full recovery.)

G. Merritt May 3, 2008

I'm a chicken, too!

One of the few French films that I watched the pass year was Catherine Breillat's 2001 film Fat Girl. Having never heard of the director, I went into the film not quite sure what to suspect and I received quite an eyeful. While the film was not quite as shocking that the reviews that I subsequently read made it out to be, it does take quite a detailed look into underage sex and rape. Curious to watch another film by the same director, I found Fat Girl to be decent and my film viewing is lacking in the department of female directors, I borrowed the Breillat's 1976 film A Real Young Girl which was based on a novel by the director. Having watched Fat Girl I thought I would be prepared for this film, well, not quite.

A Real Young Girl revolves around Alice, a precocious girl who is only fourteen but whose well-developed body makes her look like she is in her twenties. Coming home to spend the summer holiday with her parents, Alice is dreading the long, dull days in the country with her hard working, but choleric, mother, and her fat, sleazy father whose petting on Alice go a bit beyond fatherly affection. Rebellious by nature, Alice does such things as stay up to the wee hours of the morning writing in her diary just to disobey her mother and vomits upon herself to dirty herself. However, the thing that is even more important to the girl than being a rebel is sex, or at least the thought of sex, especially sex with one of her father's workers named Jim.

Yet, because of her age, and likely due to the position of her being his boss's daughter, Jim has no interest in Alice, so instead the girl fantasizes about "sex" in quite odd ways. Actual intercourse is not the subject of her fantasies, but having an earthworm shoved into her womanhood is, however, how long can such fantasies, and doing such things as public urination and buggering herself with a sun oil bottle going to keep her satisfied?

I am generally pretty open with graphic films and I was quite open to this one, but some aspects of the film bordered on gross. Within the film the viewer is treated to scenes depicting the dispelling of body fluids, swarms of flies around food, and a chicken slowly having its neck sliced open. It is easy to see that the consumption of vast quantities of food, as in Fat Girl, depict deeply seeded erotic desire and the bloodletting could be viewed as a girl's passage to womanhood, but at some points the scenes are a bit too much.

Another gripe about the film is that it doesn't seem to say anything but detailing one girl's sexual frustrations and sexual fantasies albeit ones with no actual intercourse in a highly voyeuristic manner, but this seems to be Breillat's area of interest and, as in reality, frustrations oftentimes do not come to a neat and tidy end. January 3, 2008

Adolescent Female Fantasies?

At first, I really didn't know what to make of this movie. It was literally hidden for twenty-five years after it was first released until it came out on DVD about 2002. The first thing I need to say is that it was written and directed by a woman, so it isn't some dirty old man's fantasies. Also, this is the most explicit movie you are likely to see in what is considered 'legitimate' (i.e., not porn) movies. Within the first fifteen minutes Alice's pubic area is seen, and in later scenes she is seen urinating on the toilet, her fantasy boyfriend tries to push a worm up her [...] (spreading apart the labia majora), and later much of her genitals are seen as she exposes herself to the young man. Nothing is left to the imagination. I think most of the movie deals with Alice's fantasies; e.g. the scene with the worms has a parallel to sexual intercourse, but in her mind it would be less intrusive than the reality.

That said, in a way I can see why Alice would have such explicit sexual fantasies if for no other reason than to escape the emotional abuse her bitter, grouchy mother heaps upon her. Why she turns to sexual fantasies is not clear. Maybe it is because of her father's abnormal sexual behavior. At fourteen, she probably would have fantasized more romantic situations, but by seventeen she might have been more concerned with the physical aspects of sex, with the actuality ever more closer, so that rings true. Still, to Alice, sex is something 'out there' and she can't really relate to the reality of sexual activity. Touching is something she can understand because she can touch herself, but intercourse involves partially abandoning oneself to another, and this is a barrier she is trying to comprehend. When she finally is actually with the young man, and he wants sex, she is faced with the physical reality of sex, and it isn't anything like she fantasized. So, she resists, at least at first.

Men would probably be most interested in the exposure of female body parts only extremely rarely seen in cinema (other than pornography). I would be interested to know just how common Alice's 'coming-of-age' is for most women. It seems that Alice was completely oblivious to the love element (maybe because she doesn't feel loved at home?), which I think would be the key for most girls her age to make sense of the reality demanded by their sexual urges. For obvious reasons, this French movie isn't easy to find, and it certainly is not a movie for kids. I think it would be of most interest to sexologists and psychologists who deal with adolescent sexuality as one small part of their library. December 19, 2007

This is Uncut? Your kidding me!?

This sure sounded like a hot movie when i read the overview. A young woman curious about sex and trying to get herself off. Boy,i sure was surprised at what this really is. A super softcore B-movie with terrible acting and almost no sex!!! You want nudity? Sorry. But this movie does have worms,thats right, worms! In one of the "Sex scenes" a guy puts live worms into the womans private area. Yeah,it's that bad. Stay far away from this one. March 11, 2007

Product okay, movie itself, well. . .

The DVD promtly arrived and was of high quality. The movie itself was merely OK. Catherine Breillat is often talked about for her daring subject matter and explicit style, but, in this as in others, there is simply too much dead space for either enjoyment or eroticism. Don't watch this when you're tired, unless you are troubled by insomnia. January 10, 2007

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