Stars: Anais Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Romain Goupil, Arsinee Khanjian, Laura Betti, Mark Barriere, Libero De Rienzo, Albert Goldberg

Director: Catherine Breillat

Summary: Anais is twelve years old, overweight and ignored by her parents. On a family holiday she is witness to her sister's relationship with an Italian student. French dialogue.

Take two very naive, very young French girls--one a thin 15-year-old, Elena (Roxane Mesquida), and the other her fat 12-year-old sister, Anais (Anais Reboux). Picture them as lambs. Add a manipulative older Italian boy, Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). Picture him as the wolf. Witness from close range as the one of the lambs (the thin one) is devoured by the wolf as the other lamb (the fat one) watches in pain but does nothing. The result is A MA SOEUR!, Catherine Breillat's intense, perplexing, suffocating, grim, terrifying, sickening, dark, plotting depiction of teenage loss of innocence. "Sinister" is what the Italian boy calls what he does to the French girl. "Proof of love" is how the thin girl justifies it. The fat girl, Anais, responds by sitting on the beach in her new dress and letting the surf wash up on her as she softly sings sad songs about boredom and death. Later, staring into the mirror, alone together, eye to eye, cheek to cheek, unblinking, the fat and thin sisters calmly share their most hateful feelings for each other. But nothing prepares the viewer for the final blow of the film, which sneaks up with a ferocity that pales the wolf-lamb scenario. Not a pretty picture, Breillat's shockingly realistic work features a fruity color scheme and an optimistic soundtrack that perfects the film's intended confusion of mood and message.

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Catherine Breillat's A Ma Soeur!is a touchingly honest but also highly disturbing account of two French middle-class teenage sisters' family holiday. As sexually explicit as Breillat's earlier picture, Romance, this film focuses on the travails of flabby 12-year-old Anais Pingot (Anais Reboux), who is the bane and the opposite of her glamorous elder sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida). Constantly having to live in the shadow of Elena and being nagged by her workaholic father (Romain Goupil), lonely Anais resorts to eating and her imagination for pleasure. Her 15-year-old sister, in contrast, is desperate to find romantic love. Their differences are harshly exposed when Elena starts a frantic affair with Italian law student Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). To minimise the risk of being discovered by their parents, Anais accompanies Fernando and Elena throughout their clumsy encounters. She's even present during the pair's sexual experimentation.

Anais Reboux's depiction of an introverted young woman is both shocking and true to life, particularly the scene when she swims around a swimming pool kissing and conversing with the pool's diving board and steps as if they were imaginary lovers. The film actually thrives on very little, a simple plot, a 25-minute bedroom scene, and the monotony of the fatal motorway trip home. Like violence itself, the violent ending is a particularly pointless and baffling finale for an otherwise thought-provoking film.

On the DVD:A Ma Soeur!on DVD can be viewed with or without English subtitles. The bonus material includes biographies of the leading actors and the director, a theatrical trailer and promotional images from the film. Tom Dawson's excellent notes booklet provide an informed insight into the production of the movie. The anamorphic picture is good, as is the Dolby Stereo soundtrack. --John Galilee

Aspect Ratio:	Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 0
Special Features:	Star And Director Filmographies, Scene Selection, Tom Dawson Film Notes, Original Theatrical Trailer, World Cinema Trailer Reel
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2001
Release Date:	June 24, 2002
Runtime:	82 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	T V D 3372
Keywords:	Girl, Subtitled, General, Wide, Screen, Fat, French, Romantic, Drama, Ma, Soeur
Genre:	Drama