Cast: Anne Parillaud, Grégoire Colin, Roxane Mesquida, Ashley Wanninger
Director: Catherine Breillat
Producer: Jean-François Lepetit
Screenplay: Catherine Breillat
Cinematography: Laurent Machuel
U.S. Distributor: IFC Films
In French with subtitles
Few filmmakers working in the international marketplace are more polarizing than Catherine Breillat. Her in-your-face style of filmmaking, which often includes hardcore sex scenes and long periods of pretentious dialogue, has turned her name into a brand of sorts. She unabashedly admits to being a militant feminist - anyone expecting to see "the man's point of view" in any of her films will be disappointed. And she delights in pushing, if not redefining, the envelope.
I first became acquainted with Breillat in 1999 when viewing Romance, an explicit study of a woman who gets in touch with her inner sexual identity after her boyfriend unilaterally decides to try celibacy. Admittedly, the film was more interesting at the time than it is in retrospective, but it gathered Breillat a loyal world-wide following and assured that her future movies would have a shot at distribution beyond the borders of France. As far as I'm concerned, Breillat has made only one standout feature: 2000's Fat Girl. In that movie, the sex and dialogue serve a higher point than alternately shocking and boring the audience.
Sex Is Comedy is not Breillat's "latest" movie. It was completed a couple of years ago, and had its North American premiere at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. In the interim, Breillat has made another picture (Anatomy of Hell). Sex Is Comedy can almost be considered a "minor" entry on her resume. It is more intriguing than it is entertaining. The film transpires during the shooting of a movie. The director, Jeanne (Anne Parillaud), is having trouble with both her lead actor (Gregoire Colin), who is arrogant and self-centered, and her lead actress (Roxane Mesquida, the svelte sister from Fat Girl), who doesn't like her co-star. Both performers have issues about appearing nude, which is a problem, because the key scene in the movie is a sex scene.
The film's central flaw is that the characters are haphazardly developed, and don't come across as more interesting than the props. The worthwhile aspect of Sex Is Comedy, however, is the insight it gives into filmmaking, and, in particular, into the filming of sex scenes. Plenty of movies have gone behind the scenes of a motion picture production; none have been as frank about the complications involved in shooting naked bodies and simulated intercourse. (The actor uses a prosthetic penis - making us wonder whether this is a trick employed by Breillat in some of her previous, explicit efforts - which becomes a source of much of Sex Is Comedy's raunchy humor.)
According to Breillat, while some of what happens in Sex Is Comedy is drawn from real-life events (in particular, from her experiences while filming the sex scenes in Fat Girl), it is not intended to be autobiographical. The director did not want Ann Parillaud to mimic her, nor is everything that transpires during the course of this picture a representation of something that previously happened to Breillat. Her successfully realized intention is to represent her experience of filmmaking on the screen, and, for anyone whose curiosity is piqued by this (and who doesn't mind a lot of talking), Sex Is Comedy is of some interest.
© 2004 James Berardinelli