What I learned from this film . . . . and the other films of this Director! Words like Provocative, Controversial, Shocking when used to describe a film usually mean a film has already been made that deals with the subject that has more taste, cleverness, attention to narrative believability and character development than the Provocative Controversial and Shocking one.Provocative, Controversial, and Shocking filmmakers can get people to watch their films by being Provocative, Controversial, and Shocking over and over again on basically the same theme.Girls (at least in France) will start French kissing you in a public cafe within the first 2 minutes of meeting you in front of your sister if you are from Italy, cute and have limited command of French but can amazingly have 30 minute intimate conversations and then mentally rape you with their limited command of French.Teenagers (at least in France and parts of Italy) think about sex 24 hours a day and have no other interests that would make them fully rounded human beings worth really caring about and when they actually are intimate show no compassion tenderness or enjoyment of eroticism because men always mentally rape girls and girls are really dense.Mental Rape consists of being - conned into having Anal sex(because it's not real sex)by someone who doesn't really speak your language well- with your sister in the room. Going down on your boyfriend the next day without him even asking because you're "confused" and don't realize you've been mentally raped, but you go down on him anyway because???. Having sex on the beach, again with the sister nearby, having sex at night again with the sister in the room. Telling the girl you really love her and want to see her again and then still not really knowing you've been mentally raped because mental rape means you don't realize you're being mentally raped.Wondering if %100 percent of civilization has been missing out by not having their sister in the room while having passionless sex.There can be really cool scenes on highways that build up and then go nowhere.Serial Killers can blunder out of Nowhere smash your window without your Mother waking up, kill your Sister, rip your mothers clothes and fondle her for no apparent reason before killing her and then not kill you but rape you and make you eat your own underwear but letting you live so there will be a cool freeze frame at the end that is Provocative Controversial and Shocking.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical for a Director seeking the "truth" to lie to a 13 year old actress by telling them their dog just died to get a performance out of them.It is OK (in France at least) to have a 13 year old perform a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth and have it not considered pornographic but artistic because its the "truth" - by way of a dead dog that's not really dead.It is OK to mock people even liberals! because they find a 13 year old performing a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth as pornographic and not enlightened.It is OK to have a 13 year old perform a brutal explicit rape scene and gag on her own underwear as its stuffed into her mouth but not to actually see the finished film because they are not old enough.There are some people who don't understand why the above is painfully ironic and will mock you for mentioning it and call you "Moral" and "you must be an American" These same people are Enlightened.Enlightenment in the 21st century is more of a catch phrase people use when they can't explain why someone is not "Getting It" and are too busy "texting to explain further. It is not the same as Enlightenment in the age that nobody cares about anymore because it happened along time ago and they don't bother to teach it in school because they would have to cut the budget on the new Football field to pay for the classes.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical for a Director seeking the "truth" about the degrading aspects of sex on women as dealt by men to hire a notorious porn star who has dunked womens heads into toilets while having anal sex to act in your film because he has a big weenie.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical to say professional seasoned actors are all mediocre and conformists because they are too smart to agree to be in your films.It is OK and not outrageously hypocritical to say professional seasoned actors are all mediocre and conformists because they don't look good nude or have small weenies.Saying "All true artists are hated" is only %50 true. It won't make you an artist but it will get you hated.It is OK for a filmmaker to have a grossly unhealthy, childishly obsessive and ugly view of human sexuality without offering any juxtaposition, contrast or thematic development of this limited theme and pass it off as Provocative, Controversial, Shocking and "truthful" over and over again while using manipulation, hypocritical views, methods and a serious lack of narrative common sense, instead of seeking some kind of therapy so they will stop making the same movies on the same subject the rest of their lives.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS-The ending is discussed) Another stunningly strange film from Catherine Breillat, director of Romance, Anatomy of Hell and Real Young Girl.The plot concerns two sisters the older one, Elena who is about 14 or 15, and is thin and beautiful, and the younger,Anais, who is 12, is fat. While on vacation they meet a law student and Elena begins a dangerous flirtation with the young man. This quickly leads to several secret night time visits to the girls room as Anais watches her sister and her paramour. Tension grows between the girls as Anais longs for the affection that her sister is getting.I should state I'm not a fan of Catherine Breillat. I find her films shocking and silly. Clearly she's going for an effect, which she usually achieves, and which is usually dissipated by the the lack of anything behind it (to paraphrase some one famous she presents the obvious by way of the scandalous). Here for example we have several scenes of intimacy between Elena and her beau, which are filmed in long almost painful takes that simulate Anais watching from across the room. The scenes are edgy for what they are showing and uncomfortable since the girl involved is 14 or 15. (Anais is suppose to be 12. Though both seem older.) For me the scenes went from intriguing to uncomfortable to dull rather quickly as they seemed to just drag on. To me the scenes would have worked better had we gotten to know the two girls more at the start. Certainly a later scene where the pair shows affection for each other adds a great deal the relationship between the pair, but for me it was too late to affect the early sex scenes. Breillat also goes for effect when she has the mother drive the girls home and we have what seems like a two hour ride with the three women in the car moving in and out of traffic. Its grand foreshadowing and she builds tension for an event that never comes while at the same time keeping you sleepy enough that when the final bit comes you're completely unprepared.I have to tell you what that was but nothing that happens in the preceding 80 minutes prepared me for the unintentionally funny conclusion of this film. Many people find the sudden and shocking turn of events horrify and unnerving and the very end is, however what sparks that is simply very silly, and it was so out of left field, so bizarre, so ridiculous that the boredom of the long car sequence was sent packing as I doubled over in a fit of laughter. I can not and could not believe that anyone would do what Breillat does. Its a shock technique that doesn't belong in this film or a film like this which no doubt why so many people are horrified by it. Even if this were the sort of film that it might belong in, no one would do it as silly as here. What bothers me is that it leads up to a disturbing event that, and we should be really shocked and rattled to our core but for me it was wildly undercut in its power because what it took to get us there was so contrived and so ludicrous it runs the final bit.I don't know what deeper meaning was behind it all, certainly the rivalry between sisters and sexual longing and such,but I got no hidden truth, nothing I didn't know before. I'm sure it has something with Anais' statements about sex, then again it could be the most forceful statement of what many consider a slasher films morality, namely sex is bad. To be honest I had my cage rattled a bit, but to what end? Perhaps had I been a girl with a sister or two this might have meant something to me, but as it stands now its a dullish movie with a WTF ending.I'd leave this review there except I have to say something about the best thing in this film, namely the two girls the story revolves around. They are both stunning beautiful and damn fine actresses. The interplay between them is very real and I would love to see them paired up again, in a better film. To be honest they are so good that I will probably watch this again to see them interact (especially in the secrets scene) 4 out of 10 (I was tempted to say 5 out of ten but the ending really strikes me as too silly- a great moment-but for all the wrong reasons. I think the end is what sealed this films doom)

Fat Girl is a very different kind of movie. Anais is the "fat girl" of the movie and she loves to eat. She watches her beautiful sister Elena get involved with and get seduced by a suitor. All Anais wants is to lose her virginity too. When she makes out with an imaginary boyfriend in the swimming pool, it is heart-breaking. The actors are all stunning all around. The ending, like the synopsis said, is shocking and controversial. I think it is fitting because real life is never predicted. All the events and reasonings we are all lead up to are believable because Anais never hides who she is and what she wants. Fat Girl is a movie that was never seen by the masses but lucky it is now available on DVD. I would never want to watch it more than once, but I recommend everybody to see it at least once.

Fat Girl opens with a scene depicting the sister Anais, 13, and Elena, 15, walking to town from their vacation how to get a drink. At first it appears as a seemingly innocent scene until their conversation is overheard. Of course, the topic is sex. While this topic is nothing new for teenagers going through the difficult years of puberty, what strikes the viewer is that the conversation goes far beyond mere curiosity. Elena, slim and pretty, has already engaged in a number of amorous activities besides actual penetration and Anais, overweight, plain, and deadpan, while still a virgin, is convinced that she wants her first sexual encounter to be with someone that she does not love so that she will be "broken in" for the man that she will one day love. This conversation devolves until Elena challenges Anais to see who can get a boy first.Arriving at a small outdoor café, an Italian university student invites to Anais and Elena to sit at his table with him. Anais is quick to sit beside the student, whose name is Fernando, but is ordered to stand by Elena. Fernando assures the girls that it is perfectly alright to sit with him and Elena quickly takes the seat next to him and soon, after ordering some refreshments and making small talk the two are kissing. Because of her beauty and character, Elena's parents made a rule that Anais must be with her at all times away from the vacation home, but Elena is quick to abandon her sister for a short getaway with her new boyfriend.Later in the film, after sharing a meal with Elena and Anais and their parents, Fernando sneaks into the vacation home and puts the move on Elena and she is more than willing to do anything for Fernando outside of intercourse. On this point, Fernando's demeanor changes and he tries to convince Elena to give herself to him as a "proof of love" because if she does not he will have to go off and find another woman which he does not want to do because he "loves" her. To appease Fernando, Elena consents to another route of intimacy which leaves her feeling ashamed, but Fernando assures her that it was "beautiful and "a proof of her love" for him. During this entire process, Anais has been watching the young couple. She was not spying on them per se because the activities were taking place within the bedroom that she shares with her sister. More mature than her amorously inclined but naïve older sister, Anais can see that things are leading to disaster.Always a controversial director because of her filmic depictions of sexuality that borderline on the pornographic, some would say dive right into the pornographic, Breillat delved into new ground and faced even more controversy because of its depictions of underage sexuality. However, the sexual acts depicted in the film are not meant to titillate but to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, because it is one of the few films that reflect the suffering of a young girl who has been suckered by a man she "loves," she is already talking to Fernando about getting married which he fully supports to reach his "goal," and the damaging effects that it has. Also, the film does a wonderful job depicting children who grow up too quickly and the highly uncomfortable situations that it can create. The scenes depicting the drive home are almost exhausting because of the high sense of tension that they create.While I cannot recommend Fat Girl to everyone, I can recommend it to film viewers who want to delve into a film that depicts sexuality, especially on the part of the male, at its mot base and the resulting psychological and sociological effects that it has.