Fat Girl

(aka 'Fat Girl' or 'A mia sorella!' or 'For My Sister' )

directed by Catherine Breillat
France / Italy 2001

Inspired by the eroticism of an fat teenager and the real life story about a girl saving herself by letting the murder of her family rape her, Catherine Breillat continuing her exploration of female sexuality with “A ma soeur”, aka “Fat Girl”, the perhaps most honest and at the same time provoking coming of age film to date.

Anaïs and Elena are sisters, but one wouldn’t know it. Where Elana is beautiful, slim and flirtatious, Anaïs is fat, introverted and eats all the time. While on vacation, Elena meets the older Fernando, who later on takes her virginity, while Anaïs is “sleeping” opposite to them. Infatuated with each other, Fernando steals his grandmothers ring and gives it to Elena. When his mother discovers this, she confronts Elena’s mother with the affair and the vacation and relationship ends there.

Where Elena is a naïve romantic, believing in love at first sight and the ever dying love of Fernando, even though he does little more than talking her into having sex, Anaïs believes that the person who takes her virginity should be an ugly nobody, because then she wouldn’t have any reasons to remember it. More than just two different approaches to the subject, Breillat uses their physical appearance to suggest how their perception of themselves shape their perception of sexuality: Elena is beautiful, thus sex is for her something beautiful, Anaïs is fat (ugly), thus sex is ugly. Breillat continues to use this dynamic between the two sisters throughout the film - For instance, while Elena is giving Fernando a blowjob, Anaïs is eating, later telling her sister, “eat something!” – and thru it continues examination of her motif of differentiating sex and love.

What may shock and repulse many viewers is the ending. While taking a nap on a rest place, a man attacks the car, killing the mother and Elena, only to pursuit Anaïs and rape her. When the police the following morning investigates the scene of the crime, they find Anaïs in the woods, and when they ask her if she is ok, she replies, “nothing happened.” Inspired by a real life event, Breillat uses this to have Anaïs lose her virginity and to make the indirect statement, that how we perceive sex will shape our sexuality. Just as Elena got her wish, so did Anaïs. Few directors would dare, even think, of making this ending, but for Breillat, its all about being honest and getting things out of her system. Its not about being controversial, its about being sincere.

Even though Breillat says its not so, it is tempting to look at the film as autobiographical. She was overweight as teen, while her sister was a model. Likewise she made a film about making “A ma soeur” with “Sex is comedy”, as if she wanted to distance herself, by focussing on the production. It is also the most intimate film of Breillat, and where there is a lot of Breillat’s intellect in her other films, this one is the one where there is most of her heart.

Henrik Sylow

Poster

Theatrical Release: February 10 2001 (Berlin International Film Festival) Germany

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

DVD Comparison:

Tartan - Region 0 - PAL vs. Criterion - Region 0 - NTSC

Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for the Tartan Screen Captures!

(Tartan - Region 0 - PAL LEFT vs. Criterion - Region 0- NTSC - RIGHT)

DVD Box Covers

Distribution	Tartan Video Region 2 - PAL	Criterion Collection Spine #259 - Region 1- NTSC
Runtime	1:21:09 (4% PAL speedup)	1:26:21
Video	1.81:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.10 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	1.85:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 8.1 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Tartan
Bitrate: Criterion
Audio	French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby	French (DTS) , French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles	English, and none	English, and none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Tartan Video Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.81:1 Edition Details: • Filmography: Breillat, Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Arsinée Khanjian • Film notes • Promotion Stills Gallery • Trailer (1:16) DVD Release Date: June 24th, 2002 Transparent Keep Case Chapters 16	Release Information: Studio: Criterion / Home Vision Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Edition Details: • The making of Fat Girl, compiled from behind-the-scenes footage • Original French and U.S. theatrical trailers • An essay by film scholar Ginette Vincendeau, plus an interview with Breillat, translated from the French film magazine, Positif DVD Release Date: October 19th, 2004 Keep Case Chapters: 18

Comments:

Mathematics tells us the Tartan image is cropped: 2.75% left and 3.45% bottom, but I guess the biggest issue is the censorship. The Tartan video DVD is approx. 81 min. (accounting for 4% PAL speedup) and is cut by 1min 28sec (see more below). Also colors look so faded next to the Criterion. It is also not as sharp and looks a little vertically stretched beside the NTSC release. No surprise that the Criterion extras are superior and they also offer a 5.1 audio mix along with the DTS. Really no contest at all.

- Gary W. Tooze

Comments regarding the running time.

MAY BE SPOILERS!:

From Adam:

The official running time for Fat Girl is 87 min. The Tartan video DVD is 82 min. (accounting for 4% PAL speedup) and is cut by 1min 28sec. On the inside of the box it states...
“Although Fat Girl was passed fully uncut for for its original UK cinema release, it was subsequently decided , by the British Board of Film Classification, that the video version should be cut by 1min 28sec in order to receive an ‘18’ certificate, and gain approval for release in the UK. After taking specialist advice, the BBFC have concluded that video copies may be harmfully used as part of the process of child abuse.”
It goes on to explain the scene at the end and what it contains, and to save me the time of typing it all I’ll paraphrase. It could just as easily read “We at the BBFC are a bunch of wankers, and we are proud to inform you that we have ruined the DVD you have just purchased. Have a nice day.”

Michael Brooke says:

To defend the BBFC, they had very little choice - the 1984 Video Recordings Act makes it a legal requirement not only for all UK videos to be BBFC-approved (this is not true for theatrical releases) but also for the BBFC to ensure that no UK video contains illegal material. In the case of this film, that means ensuring compliance with the 1978 Protection of Children Act - which, notoriously, does not take context into account when proscribing scenes of underage sex.

So there's no point hurling childish insults at the BBFC, whose hands were tied - if you want a change in the law(s), lobby your MP (once you've worked out how to persuade him/her that advocating greater underage sexual explicitness will be a vote winner!). I've had dealings with the BBFC in the past over issues like this, and can confirm first-hand that they're just as frustrated by this situation as anyone else, especially if the film has obvious artistic merit.

From Per-Olaf:

The Australian DVD is uncut (I suppose). The only explicit sex scene (if mood is not counted) is when the boy goes in bed with the older sister (I think 3 - 5 seconds).

Catherine Breillat explains why the scene is in the film trough the worlds of Anne Parilaud in the fiction film SEX IS COMEDY, SEX IS COMEDY is a film about the creating process of A MA SEUR!

From Henrik:

The Berlinale version (February 10, 2001) ran 95 minutes and was subsequently shown at festivals over the following year. Breillat however recut the film for the French theatrical release (March 7, 2001), which runs 86 minutes. This is the directorial preferred version.

I'm not sure why Breillat chose to recut "A ma soeur", but I believe Breillat recut the film for theatrical release, because she didn't wanted to run into censorship problems. In an interview, Breillat notes upon that Anaïs Reboux developed breasts during the production (she was 13 at the time).

And the breasts was in fact the thorn in BBFC's eye, when they had to review it for the DVD release - That, and the rape sequence. The BBFC cut runs 1:21:09 (4% PAL Speed-up) and was cut 1:28. Until the CC release, the only other uncut versions are the French "Editions Montparnasse" and the Australian "Madman" DVD, both running a few seconds short of 83 minutes (1:22:39 "Madman" (uncut)).

I completely agree, that the BBFC cut destroys the film. It directly addresses a central motif in the film of her desire to lose her virginity to being raped by an ugly man, so that the "first time" then can be dismissed, as it never is what one expects anyway. Being a lacanian desire, it is important that we witness and suffer with Anaïs.

There are also some misprints around on the internet, as for instance the French uncut DVD "Editions Montparnasse" runs 83 minutes, but on some sites are noted as 93 minutes. This is true, if you add the 10 minute conversation with Breillat, but the total running time is actually 100 minutes, as there also is a 5 minute "behind the scenes" and a 2 minute trailer.

For those having or buying "A ma soeur!", I can only encourage them also to pick up "Sex is Comedy", as it, as Per-Olaf says, is about the making of.

Recommended Reading in French Cinema (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)


The Films in My Life by Francois Truffaut, Leonard Mayhew	French Cinema: A Student's Guide by Philip Powrie, Keith Reader	Agnes Varda by Alison Smith	Godard on Godard : Critical Writings by Jean-Luc Godard	The Art of Cinema by Jean Cocteau	French New Wave by Jean Douchet, Robert Bonnono, Cedric Anger, Robert Bononno	French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present by Remi Fournier Lanzoni	Truffaut: A Biography by Antoine do Baecque and Serge Toubiana