Mondays at 3 p.m.
Lectures by Prof. Marilyn Fabe
May 6
School Daze
Spike Lee (U.S., 1988)
May 13
Dancer in the Dark
Lars von Trier (Denmark/France, 2000)
Introduced by Linda Williams
(À Ma Soeur!). In Romance and 36 Fillette Catherine Breillat staked her claim as French cinema's foremost chronicler of female sexuality; with Fat Girl she achieved long-due international recognition and, as always, a flurry of bannings and tsk-tsk'ings from those unable to reconcile young girls and sexuality. Two sisters are on summer vacation near the sea; beautiful Elena is fifteen and looking for love among an assortment of willing dopes, while the dowdy Anais (the "fat girl" of the title, discovered in a Paris McDonalds) is also looking for love, but settles for dessert-filled spoons to practice her kissing technique. Their summertime idyll of sibling rivalry and mutual insults takes a turn with the arrival of the obligatory Italian collegian, complete with fast car and a Romeo's empty promises. Breillat painstakingly details the awkwardness of a teen's sexual awakening in all its fear, loathing, and panic-then overpoweringly releases those emotions.
-Jason Sanders
