A Real Young Girl
Director: Catherine Breillat
Year Released: 1976
Rating: 2.0
The title character comes home from school for the summer and is stuck with her parents - this boredom causes her to examine her own rapidly developing sexuality. Breillat shows the female organ (and its function(s)) as something messy and mysterious (as opposed to any more romantic view): the resulting film might have been a good feminist statement if she didn't intend for every shot and object to be so symbolic and precious (the trees oozing sap, the ink on the nightshirt, the mother's hand pulling out chicken innards and so on), and if she didn't make most of her characters miserable or unpleasant. The young girl's voice-over consists of (occasionally laughable) banalities like: "I hate people. They oppress me," "I'd prefer the evening. It's sadder," and my personal favorite, "I can't accept the proximity of my face and my vagina."
