This week we delve into the relentless and perverted mind of Catherine Breillat, the French filmmaker and novelist who has disturbed audiences for 50 years. Broadly consideredcinéma du corps,Catherine’s movies explore the grotesqueness of sex and the body, depraved sexual longing, petulant, manipulative, and erratic women, and fraught and often violent sexual encounters.
In this episode, we explore Breillat’s ability to craft characters we can’t stand, invert the expected power dynamics between men and women, and engender such a visceral response from her audience. We also review her many capital-c Controversies and discuss how her insistence on women’s manipulative tendencies works so well in art and… less well in real life.
Plus! More on Ripe / Dead psychology, a rant on Margaret Qualley from Holly, and a rave on Eileen Kelly / @killerandasweetthang from Linnea Grace.
Mentioned:
CRUSH Rachel Antonoff SS 2014 short (Margaret Qualley prototype foreshadowing…)
Movies by Catherine Breillat:A Real Young Girl(1976),36 Fillette(1988),Romance(1999),Fat Girl(2001),Sleeping Beauty(2011),Abuse of Weakness(2013),Last Summer(2024)
“Catherine Breillat’s Unselling Cinema of Desire” Victoria Uren (2025)
Catherine Breillat’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct
“State of Grace: Catherine Breillat on Last Summer” interview with Grace Byron inScreen Slate(2024)