36 fillette

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This is a love story off the beaten track clearly in the tradition of Louis Malle and Francois Truffaut, told without prudishness or gratuitous violence.

The title refers to a children's dress size that the 14-year-old lead, Lili, played with snap by Delphine Zentout, is bursting out of. Billed as a "French Lolita," Zentout is not all that fetching at first glance. She's a chubbette with light skin and thick black hair and not exactly pretty. But she has intriguing eyes and a saucy way about her.

Lili is "discovering" her sexuality, but won't let herself be impregnated. The playboy, played with grace and economy by Jean-Pierre Leaud, falls in love with her in spite of himself and "tolerates" her reluctance while being partially satisfied in other ways, one of which we used to call a "cold f..." They are a believable match because sexually they are equal: she precocious, he experienced.

Catherine Beillat directs without sentimentality while guiding Zentout to an interpretation that transcends the American brat style and leads us to a thoughtful view of feminine sexuality.

This film was made in France in the late 1980s, but it is unimaginable that it could be made in Hollywood then or now. The US studio mind set sees adolescence in 'American Pie' terms and the current wave of legislative hysteria over child porn precludes any thoughtful treatment of how adolescents deal with their emerging sexuality.

Working outside these constraints in France Catherine Breillat has been able to craft a film which is occasionally startlingly frank but never exploitive. She looks unblinkingly at the unruliness of adolescent sexual behavior and does not shy away from depicting the protagonist of the title as part seducer as well as part victim.

Delphine Zentout is sensationally good in depicting a young girl with rampaging hormones in a hurry to become a woman. She plays her as unashamedly surly, self absorbed and difficult, without a trace of cuteness.

This is a film in which every note rings true.

In France a young girl's coming-of-age usually means going topless for the first time on the beach at San Tropez, but the young heroine of Catherine Breillat's semi-autobiographical psycho-drama is no typical teen nymphet, showing more physical and emotional maturity at the tender age of 14 (going on 24) and an instinct for sexual provocation far beyond her actual experience. Lili may look like a sullen, restless, temperamental flirt, but only to men with one thing on their mind, in particular the jaded, aging playboy who pursues her to the bitter end of infatuation. Breillat directs her own script with a cool, clinical detachment, refusing to camouflage the cold mechanics of sex with any bogus soft-focus poetry. But because the film is so confident and impersonal it may be more of a tease than Lili herself, who in the end is only using all the complicated foreplay and frustration to help find a man who might release her from the terrible burden of virginity. C'est la vie.

I should of known this was a Catherine Brelliat film, some of this one, feeling much like that messy Fat girl. This isn't a badly made film and does have some very hot moments. A young 14 year old girl, holidaying, wants to experience sexual pleasure with older guys and lose her virginity. She meets a playboy, twice her age, plus. Instant attraction. Over the span of the night, while engaging in boozing, dancing, and sexual encounters with this the stranger, comes that special moment, where she is to lose it, but has second thoughts. This very much frustrates the mid thirties guy, who really should be in prison. Comes another night where the two become more intimate. The movie really rides on this scenario, which it tells the views of both these characters and takes it's time, in what is a very realistic scenario, which is what I really liked about this movie. Although it's not Brielliat's best, this earlier effort from this controversial director, is definitely worth it's view, where I will re iterate, the film does feel a lot like Fat Girl, even the familiar settings. True to life, these sexual encounters happen, where choices to continue, or cross the line have resulted in arrests, due to girls below the age of consent. A quite beautifully flowing film. The young actress gives a really mature and professional performance.

36 Fillette is an aimless journey of coming of age by a 14 year old girl played extremely well by Delphine Zentout. She talks her brother into taking her to a disco where she is eventually taken advantage of by a much older man played by Etienne Chicot. She is an angry girl whose home life leaves a lot to be desired. This film really has no point other than to continually think of ways for an older man to have sex with a 14 year old girl. Pass on this meaningless story. Too bad as the acting was very good.