Orphan girl Eléonore has been dealt a very poor hand by fate. During a car accident she not only lost both her parents, but also her left arm. That’s far from an ideal starting position in life, if one seeks a conventional lifestyle. She grows up in a girl’s boarding school, and despite the constant stress of school and the heckling of the nuns she and her best friend Rita enjoy themselves. She has even come to accept that her body is deformed and over the years she has learned that certain man will fall for her far easier. There is a strong sexual seductiveness emanating from her missing limb and her imperfect body makes her center of attention wherever she goes. Eléonore soon is surrounded by shady characters who are eager to treat her body to morbid and unspeakable procedures. Director Jacques Richard seems heavily influenced by Luis Buñuel’s obsession for physical impediments and he shares an aesthetic taste with the grandmaster of the surreal. His multilayered study of physical obsession is based on a story by Roland Torpor, whose novel The Tenant was used by Roman Polanski for his eponymous film. –Oldenburg Film Festival
