36 Fillette (Catherine Breillat, 1988)

While I like Catherine Breillat, I have not yet been impressed with her films on adolecent sexuality. It's as if Breillat matured along with her films, culminating in the wonderful Romance and Anatomy of Hell. 36 Fillette, made relatively mid to early in Breillat's career, is another that I was disappointed with. Lili is 14, ready to be a woman, and is completely intolerable (to me). Breillat is brilliant in juxtaposing Lili's desire to be a woman (have sex) with everything else about her character, which is completely childish - she constantly whines, pouts, and fights with her brother, to the extent that it is often embarrassing and painful to watch. Although I am impressed with Breillat's formation of a character (which is probably autobiographical) in which woman and child live in relative harmony, I could not stand Lili, and wondered constantly why anyone would even choose to be around her. It might have been better to make Lili a more sympathetic image of young female sexuality, but, instead, we get brutal realism that doesn't even seem so real. Lili tries (horribly) to seduce an older man, a real sleazy character who doesn't mind that she's 14. Lili is on again off again about her desire to have sex, but the man is pretty insistant, until Lili annoys even him. Her brother is almost as bad, but he's not on camera as much, so he's not that annoying. The best scene in the movie is between Lili and famous musician Boris Golovine (Jean-Pierre Leaud, whom everyone who reads this blog should know by now that I love). Boris listens to Lili's childish complaints and tries to give her useful life advice. Lili, of course, being 14, doesn't listen, but Boris' try is a noble and funny one nonetheless. All in all, not one of my favorite Breillat films, but one for completists like me. 6/10 RIYL: A Real Young Girl

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