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I didn´t know Catherine Breillat´s work, so it was quiet a good surprise. The movie is very realistic and it shows perfectly the sisters relationship (love and hate) and the excitement, fear and all feelings around the first sexual experience.

I don´t think the end is supposed to shock. From the first scene we know that something is going to happen, even tending to think that Anaïs is going to do something against Elena. When they are driving home and later, in the car, after Elena comes back from the bathroom, it gets obvious. Experimenting her sexuality through her sister´s, when Anaïs says Elena to not think about Fernando and sleep it seems that she´s saying: just sleep, now it´s my turn. She doesn´t try to escape from the murder, she barely tries to resist; she knows that it´s something inevitable as much as it is to a guy falling in love or be attracted to her sister. She doesn´t seem shocked or sad with her mother and sister´s death, but satisfied for knowing how it´s to be desirable – wrongly thinking, of course – and free (or something alike) of the heavily presence (and beauty) of Elena.

How can an Ontario boy like me forget the hoopla surrounding our province’s banning of this film in 2001… and the eventual lifting of that ban in 2003? Anytime censorship is involved, my interest is on high alert. That was a lot of hype for this film to live up to.

I missed seeing it in the theatre but scooped up Criterion’s DVD the week of release and was pretty well floored. Not by the elements that caused the local ratings board to temporarily ban the film, but rather by that single 3 seconds of film near the end. Since I’m sure all who are reading this have seen the film, I’ll come right out and say “the windshield scene”. Easily one of the best shock moments in cinema history. The highway scenes certainly built the tension leading up to it, but I was still well stung by this spark of violence in an otherwise slower-paced film. Seeing it a couple times since, I always manage to get caught off guard by it, not knowing exactly when to expect it.

All those words for only a few seconds of the film. All-in-all Fat Girl is a very strong film on the nature of sexuality that doesn’t hold it’s opinions back at all. It’s not perfect, but it did live up to my high expectations and remains a solid choice for Criterion’s catalog.

‘Fat Girl’ was a briiliant exploration of sensuality, desire, and the reasoning that says to us that we can only experience sensuality and desire versus standing on the sidelines ‘theorizing’ about ‘sex’ and being ‘horny’.

The rewarding experience of watching this film comes from recognizing that catherine breillat has created a very powerful potrayal not based on creating some ‘feel good, fun movie’, but creating a very powerful exploration into the charged realms of sensuality and desire. People who went into this film thinking ‘fun’ should stick with watching ‘American Pie’ flicks to watch dumb, one-dimensional, ‘horny’ characters waste their time running about trying to get laid for no other reason than….trying to get laid.

This fillm belongs to those willing to invest themselves into the power, into the surge, and into the abundance of the senses.

“You’ve shown your love for me. It was a proof of love.”

This film is essentially about power, about young women relinquishing what little power (as we ultimately discover) they wield regarding their sexual choices if men are resolved towards a particular “conquest”.

Hopefully more and more men (and women) will see this film and recognise the monster in humanity and how blind we can be to this power-disparity.

Catherine Breillat’s study of adolescent sexuality (or at least female adolescent sexuality, it presents an incredibly antagonistic and close-minded view of male sexuality) seems more interested in illustrating philosophical notions of sex and relationships than it is in telling a convincing story. Pretentious, slow-paced, and dull much of the time, leading up to an absolutely ridiculous ending – it falls far short of accomplishing whatever it is it’s trying to accomplish.

The film wasn’t as audacious or shocking as it is ridiculous and thrilling. The absurdity of it all would have never been whole without the over the top turn around ending. It’s not stupid if it fits. Which it does. What the movie is is plain smart. It had all those naked human bits of drama that go an as a kid that I’ve been looking to see in a movie. I thought Larry Clark had the monopoly on teenage sexuality! Both Kids and Fat Girl end with sexual violence. What’s admirable about this one is that it spares us the moral lesson. It’s a great movie this one for all it’s womanly sass. I swear, when I saw the last frame freeze and that corny song swell up, I laughed and I thought, “What a sarcastic bitch this Breillat is.”

The movie is absurd in all the right ways.

Sex for the first time is always an act of thievery, taken by deception or brute force. Mutual consent couldn’t possibly exist as we forge on blindly with desire. There is no stopping the beast once aroused.

In essence, Fernando and the Rapist are of the same ilk. They both represent the lascivious nature of man, the insidious scourge that seeks to corrupt and manipulate the innocent. There is no duality here. This Is primal lust. It lurches and scratches and claws and tears at the flesh until it’s needs, wants and desires are met. Any attempt to see it any other way is rather difficult to say the least.

Fat Girl makes no attempt mince words or repress thoughts. This is raw cinema. Art created with the intent of provoking. That uneasy feeling the viewer is left with is wrought with a skilled hand. It would be an inhuman soul indeed who walked away from this film without at least finding some merit in the attempt to stir social consciousness.

Statements such as this are bound to create polarization. One says art, another tripe. Regardless, Catherine Breillat has stated her case and the viewer is left to decide. Is this a profound work or an attempt to be offensive?

Given the first two acts, the ending was inevitable. Elena’s virginity being taken by deception left no alternative. Even though the last 15 minutes of film were shocking – as in, how could a man do such a thing? – they were not unexpected! Lust and desire are powerful motives. A man with a hatchet and/or an erection will stoop to the level of insanity to satiate the impulse to devour some flesh.

Everything said, Fat Girl is an interesting film and Catherine Breillat did an admirable job of directing it. However, it was a little too one sided. The feminist concept of sex being solely the product of lust is rather narrow minded. There are still noble people in this world who have sex with the desire to procreate. Not all man seek to have intercourse through deception or force.

This film conveys a half-truth and in itself is rather insidious. It is very easy to go on a witch hunt but, it’s not so easy to have an honest discourse on a touchy subject. Sure, it can not be denied that there are individuals who will do anything for sexual gratification. However, there are also men who do treat women with the respect that they deserve. How about showing a little of that in the next film?