The Grand Illusion

Catherine Breillat’s behind-the-scenes account of shooting FAT GIRL stars Anne Parillaud as Breillat surrogate Jeanne, a director intent on getting her film’s most intimate sequence just right—even if it means alternately coaxing and battling her fragile, needy young actors (Grégoire Colin and Roxane Mesquida, virtually recreating her role from FAT GIRL). Once again exploring her signature obsessions, Breillat uses this metafictional format to investigate the ethical responsibilities of the artist, the messy logistics of running a set, and the slippery nature of realism, as applied to one of filmmaking’s most challenging ordeals: the simulated sex scene. Culminating in one actor’s ribald high jinks with a body prosthetic and another’s breakthrough into shattering emotional territory, SEX IS COMEDY is Breillat’s heady, brilliant synthesis of the ridiculous and the sublime.

Part of our series, Un Bouquet de Breillat.

In French with English subtitles.

“Breillat’s first foray into comedy is playful, whip-smart and far breezier in both tone and look than the stylized gender polemics she’s known for.” Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times

“One of the greatest movies about moviemaking… For Breillat, sex reveals the soul along with the body, baring the actors’ very sense of identity; the drama, based on her own directorial experiences, is both self-revealing and self-accusing.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker