The Grand Illusion

After a nine-year absence from the director’s chair, Catherine Breillat returned with 36 FILLETTE, having lost none of her power to push both boundaries and buttons. Delphine Zentout plays Lili, a precocious fourteen-year-old girl on a seaside family vacation. Drawn to a bitter middle-aged man (Étienne Chicot), Lili longs to lose her virginity and initiates a contest of wills in which she discovers herself more mature than, but still rattled by the equivocations of, her chauvinistic counterpart. Fueled by an extraordinary performance by then-sixteen-year-old Zentout, and featuring a scene-stealing Jean-Pierre Léaud as Lili’s brief confidant, 36 FILLETTE showcases Breillat as an incisive chronicler of the subtle evolutions of teenage desire.

Part of our series, Un Bouquet de Breillat.

In French with English subtitles.

“36 Fillette rings so true that to watch it is like eavesdropping on life. French director Catherine Breillat’s film of her own novel is so fresh and incisive, so poignant yet funny, that its coming-of-age story unfolds as if it were the first of its kind.” Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times