For those accustomed to defining their personhood solely in relation to the mind, a rupture in the body can come as an indelible shock. Such is the devastation that opens Catherine Breillat’s 2014 film Abuse of Weakness. In a composed overhead shot that begins with a...
Fat Girl (2001) is perhaps the quintessential Catherine Breillat film. A crucial figure in new French cinema, Breillat’s works are known as much for their challenging, graphic content as their cold, distanced modes of observation; traditional titillation has no...