Sex Is Comedy

According to Catherine Breillat many people believe that by watching "making of" they can understand the intricacies of the actual shooting process. She opines that this is not quite the case and the real process of filming a feature film is unfortunately very complex,hard to follow and difficult to understand. She goes on to add that rather than simplifying the creative process these programs end up confusing the viewers. Keeping this particular idea in mind, she has filmed a unique,trend setting film which relies heavily on the whims and fancies of its principal characters. One can have a first hand experience of how difficult things are on a set when a film is being shot. Compared to other films by Catherine Breillat,sex is comedy is devoid of controversial elements. As a film director in this film Anne Parillaud looks a bit similar to Catherine Breillat.Gregoire Colin is fine too as the moody actor. As a final comment, I would like to remark that this film is very serene and an inattentive viewer might not know how quickly the film is getting over.

This film was very interesting to me, virtually a film within a film, which is about a very whimsical director who cleverly persuades an actress and and actor (who happen to dislike each other) in producing sexual chemistry on film. The director is faced with a fusillade of obstacles as she tries to get the two individuals to perform beautifully on film. Sex is Comedy is much more than a comedy, packed with uncomfortable quirky moments the movie also addresses the psychological and innate instinctual behavior of men and women in regards to the sometimes controversial act of sex. I loved this film, the character Jeanne played by the beautiful Anne Parillaud performs wonderfully on screen as you share in her struggle to produce a motion picture work of art.

Another fabulous movie from Catherine Breillat, this time about the difficulties of shooting a sex scene in a movie. Using comedy – a new genre for Breillat – we get a backstage view of filmmaking but in documentary style. The character who plays the director in the movie is based on Breillat, the sex scene in question is taken from her earlier film ‘A Ma Soeur' as is the main teenage actress. But the film, like all of Breillat's work, is not entertainment alone. It is peppered with philosophical observations on the nature of sexuality as well as demonstrating a devotion to ‘purity' (as opposed to pornography) that is a cornerstone of Breillat's work and a devotion to real emotion. We see the director character harangue the young lead actress and actor to bring the best out in them, hypnotising them into the parts they need to play, bringing out part of themselves that the director can see in them but they cannot see in themselves until they achieve the heights of acting that she demands of them. She makes meaningful movies, not titillation, but she shows the work that is needed to produce this, and so gives us insights both into the (decidedly French) film making process and the psychology of male – female sexuality.

All of us, and certainly most filmmakers are trapped in small worlds. But it must be hell to be trapped in one that society recognizes as such. Breillat makes sometimes sensitive movies, all from within this tight shell, all with the same screams.

But this one is different, a whole new tone. This time she follows a French model for films that are essays: she makes a film about a film that is an essay on sex. It works because such things are talk about movies and the portrayal of life in movies.

It works because we don't have to relate to the poor girl in question, instead the filmmaker who is struggling with the representation.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

As being selected during the Quinzaine des réalisateurs, this year 2002, Catherine Breillat is masterfully halvedivided of her autobiographical film, there where her lead actress, Anne Parillaud (La Femme NIKITA, Luc Besson), embodies admirably the Film Director of "Intimate Scenes ".

This is a comedy of actors' manners. Making-Of ? Film genre ? Pornography or Exhibitionism? Sex Is Comedy is a post modern film, with its script based on a film within the film. As an implosive story of a minimalist love scene, the film is built with a constant solidarity of the forms and the spirit, in which, Breillat keeps on breaking and analyzing the taboos. Using visual codes and certain sense of the formula, Catherine Breillat implement her clinical analysis of the sexuality as an isolated problem outside the society to be communicate by the door of the heart.

Therefore, Grégoire Colin (Good Work, Nénette et Boni, Claire Denis, The Dreamlife of Angels, Eric Zonca) in the role of the Actor and Roxanne Mesquida (Fat girl, Catherine Breillat, Marie from the Bay of Angels, Manuel Prada), the Actress, are actors whom she invents, she does clarify in an interview. Breillat observes the man in front of him even, a chaste man. Then Breillat films the shame and the sexual mutilation, but also a big hope, a disturbing dimension of the ecstasy, a nudity of the feelings, the halving of the exhibitionism, playing to be one to be one. The Director is finally expected to lead the actors to give their feelings, their body and their soul. So arranged, facing the problem of the order of "who I am ", the actors of Breillat put on an inorganic vitality to merge in her work in progress. But, for what is a shape of incredible exorcism, for an actor, Breillat puts many questionings. Enduring at the same moment a big suffering, the actors appear to be the ones who look for this loving transport to be part of the eternity of their work.

The Art of Breillat is of researcher, to know how to undertake in a dialogue aiming at pushing away the limits of intimate scenes. Join make-up, prosthesis in erection and syndicates are not without reminding what pictures and scenes of Jan Steen's and Rembrandt could be in the anecdotal and the daily of characters on a shooting set. While the moral categories disappear from the background of Sex Is Comedy, Breillat succeeds in revealing the loving imitation power of the actors in a landscape of formidable and dramatic humanity.