Une vraie jeune fille (1976) - film review

When school breaks up for the summer holidays, Alice, a 14 year old girl, returns to her parents’ home in the country.  As she gradually becomes aware of her transition to womanhood, the young teenager starts to experience bizarre sexual fantasies.  When she isn’t rebelling against her parents’ austerity or exploring her own body, she realises that she is attracted towards a handsome young sawmill worker, Jim...

Catherine Breillat’s first film is a provocative portrayal of a teenage girl’s sexual awakening, daringly explicit, in a way which most viewers will find distinctly unpalatable.  It is a twisted version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, in which the naive and rebellious heroine Alice foresakes her childhood and enters the disturbing world of adult desire.  Since making this film, Breillat has earned a reputation as one of France’s most controversial filmmakers, winning condemnation and praise in roughly equal measure for her uncompromisingly face-on explorations of female sexuality.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Une vraie jeune fille is that it was made in the mid-1970s.  At the time, the film would almost certainly have been heavily censored, since images of male and female genitalia abound (perhaps to the point of needless excess).   As it was, the film was not completed, owing to the bankruptcy of its producer.  It was only 25 years later, in 2000, that the film was finished and given an international release.

Although Une vraie jeune fille is marred by its over-indulgences and clumsy presentation, it is still a film which has some artistic merit.   Most striking are its dark poetry and humanity, qualities which are less apparent in Breillat’s later, more polished films.    The moody photography alternates seamlessly between reality and fantasy and is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, whilst Charlotte Alexandra’s brooding performance gives the film its intense focus.  There are also some pleasing touches of wry comedy (provided mainly by Alice’s not-so-respectable parents), something else which is sadly lacking in Breillat’s subsequent works.

© James Travers 2003

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