Sex Is Comedy [Import]

I actually enjoyed this movie. I did not find it boring or dull. I think viewers who approach this expecting another typical Breillat film (provocative, shocking) will indeed find it tedious. It is different from her other films. It doesn't have their sexual/moral agenda. Neither is it a comedy. It is almost documentary-like. I had the impression that I was watching a "Behind The Scenes" featurette that could have been appended to any one of her other films. The whole movie revolves around a director (obviously Breillat herself) who has trouble trying to set up a crucial sex scene in her movie because her two stars detest each other. For much of the movie, we watch her plead, cajole and threaten, her actors into giving her the performance she wants.

This is more a movie about the mechanics of making a film, specifically of shooting a sex scene and the difficult relationship between director and actor.

There isn't much nudity or actual sex in this film (well, at least compared to her other movies), although we do get to see Roxane Mesquida (the pretty sister in Fat Girl) full frontal and Gregoire Colin complete with rampant prosthetic. I can understand why it is derided, especially by fans of Breillat, but you can't expect a director to always provoke or shock. How boring would that be. Here we see her reflecting on the craft of film-making. If you have some interest in film-making or at least how Breillat herself shoots her films, this would be enlightening.

MGM's transfer is in the original widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (anamorphic). The source print is clean. Colors are natural. Contrast and sharpness are fine. There is fine film grain throughout although this isn't distracting. Thankfully the English subtitles are optional.

Catherine Breillat is one of the greatest filmmakers working today. Her films are extraordinarily accurate in their depiction of the war between the sexes. Too often people are terrified of her work (both the public and the critics), because it's so truthful. This film is a companion piece to her masterpiece Fat Girl, in that it is a depiction of the making of the scene where the older sister ends up having sex with a local suitor. It is not a comedy, it is a Catherine Brelliat film. Many people rent this film thinking it's going to be fun. It's a great film, and it's not frivilous. If you admire Breillat (which you should), you should rent this. If you hate her, stay away, and it's your loss...

At some level, every film by Catherine Breillat is about dominant/submissive dynamics in the relations between men and women. In Sex Is Comedy, we get to see these power plays in theme-and-variations, the dominant role reversing and reversing again, sometimes line-by-line. All but a few scenes are between one man and one woman. It is also a brilliant behind-the-scenes look at filming an act of lovemaking, and the absurd amount of effort it takes to film a spontaneous-looking scene. Think of Truffaut's Day for Night plus a prosthetic penis.

Consider these moments: the male star refuses to take off his socks for the love scene; Jeanne, the female director, gets drunk and mischievously confesses her methods of manipulating actors to the A.D.; the co-star "lovers" can't stand each other--their initial attempts at kissing are described by the director as looking "like a corpse"; waiting for the lighting crew, the male lead paces nervously, his prosthetic erection bobbing up and down, exposed through the slit in his bathrobe. Sound like situation comedy? Well, it is and it isn't. It sets up the situations for comedy, then plays them for drama. This is what makes this often frustrating director one of the greatest living artists of the motion picture.

If you laugh, it is the laughter to relieve dramatic tension. The only scenes truly played for laughs are the attempts to film lovemaking in the movie-within-the-movie. And they are utterly hilarious. Along the way, serious questions are posed, if not answered. Does getting an actor to show an intimate part of himself take away part of his soul? Is the director of such scenes any better than a sort of voyeuristic Caligula, orchestrating something indecent for his or her pleasure?

And what about those few scenes where members of the same sex play off each other? In Sex Is Comedy, all the scenes of women with women are conspiratorial, and all the scenes of men with men show them as purveyors of vulgarity. If Brief Crossing didn't already show us that Breillat does not even pretend to be impartial, look at the final shot of Sex Is Comedy: a two-shot of director and actress locked in tearful embrace. I, personally, don't mind the bias, because it is in the foreground. No matter how I may disagree with Breillat's characterizations, there is never any attempt to cloak them as anything other than what they are. I completely respect that.