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A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD]
 
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A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD]

DVD ~ Anais Reboux
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
Price: £9.27 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Customers buy this item with Ma Mere [2005] [DVD] DVD ~ Isabelle Huppert

A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD] + Ma Mere [2005] [DVD]
Price For Both: £14.15

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  • This item: A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD] DVD ~ Anais Reboux

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Ma Mere [2005] [DVD] DVD ~ Isabelle Huppert

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    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD]
57% buy the item featured on this page:
A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD] 3.6 out of 5 stars (20)
£9.27
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Ma Mere [2005] [DVD]
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Product details

  • Actors: Anais Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Romain Goupil, Arsinee Khanjian, Laura Betti
  • Directors: Catherine Breillat
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
  • Language French
  • Subtitles: English
  • Region: All Regions
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 18
  • Studio: Tartan Video
  • DVD Release Date: 24 Jun 2002
  • Run Time: 82 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000066CWX
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,585 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

Catherine Breillat's A Ma Soeur! is a touchingly honest but also highly disturbing account of two French middle-class teenage sisters' family holiday. As sexually explicit as Breillat's earlier picture, Romance, this film focuses on the travails of flabby 12-year-old Anais Pingot (Anais Reboux), who is the bane and the opposite of her glamorous elder sister Elena (Roxane Mesquida). Constantly having to live in the shadow of Elena and being nagged by her workaholic father (Romain Goupil), lonely Anais resorts to eating and her imagination for pleasure. Her 15-year-old sister, in contrast, is desperate to find romantic love. Their differences are harshly exposed when Elena starts a frantic affair with Italian law student Fernando (Libero De Rienzo). To minimise the risk of being discovered by their parents, Anais accompanies Fernando and Elena throughout their clumsy encounters. She's even present during the pair's sexual experimentation.

Anais Reboux's depiction of an introverted young woman is both shocking and true to life, particularly the scene when she swims around a swimming pool kissing and conversing with the pool's diving board and steps as if they were imaginary lovers. The film actually thrives on very little, a simple plot, a 25-minute bedroom scene, and the monotony of the fatal motorway trip home. Like violence itself, the violent ending is a particularly pointless and baffling finale for an otherwise thought-provoking film.

On the DVD: A Ma Soeur! on DVD can be viewed with or without English subtitles. The bonus material includes biographies of the leading actors and the director, a theatrical trailer and promotional images from the film. Tom Dawson's excellent notes booklet provide an informed insight into the production of the movie. The anamorphic picture is good, as is the Dolby Stereo soundtrack. --John Galilee



DVD Description

DVD Special features
Star and director filmographies
Scene selection
Tom Dawson film notes
Original theatrical trailer
World cinema trailer reel

Anamorphic Widescreen Language French
Subtitles English


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Customer Reviews

20 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic movie from a director of rare quality, 29 May 2005
By Budge Burgess (Kilmarnock, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
Catherine Breillat has courted controversy since she wrote her first novel at 17. She would eventually make the transition from novelist to screenwriter to film director, but there are recurring themes which crop up in her various roles. Prominent amongst these are her exploration of the sexuality of women and teenage fascination with (and angst about) virginity - both of which are central to "À Ma Soeur".

The film concerns two sisters - the slim, pretty 15 year old, the overweight, marginalised 12 year old - and their relationship with one another and with their own sexuality and virginity. The girls have been taken on a family holiday but are abandoned to one another's company. Their parents seem to avoid contact with them, other than at meal times. Father, especially, is too busy with concerns about his work to be anything other than a token, family figurehead.

Elena is expected to take responsibility for the younger Anaïs. They are of an age to grow apart, and when Elena strikes up a conversation with an Italian law student, the scene is set for the fragmentation of the sisters' relationship. Anaïs becomes effectively invisible as the experienced young man seduces Elena.

Seduction, and loss of virginity, will take place in the girls' bedroom while Anaïs is supposedly asleep. But Anaïs watches as her sister is coaxed and coerced with words of love. Breillat frequently presents the contrasting images of teenage sexuality - on the one hand, precocious, dangerous, on the other, abusive, self-destructive. Teenage (or adult) self-image, self-confidence, and self-respect are often intimately bound up in how you imagine yourself to be perceived sexually by others ... are you desirable, or spurned. Here we have the two sisters, one desirable, the other spurned, one the focus of attention, the other invisible.

The sex, here, holds none of the glamour Hollywood usually offers up - no happy teenagers frolicking. Sex for Breillat is clumsy, manipulative, naïve. Anaïs, however, is more worldly than her sister. She doesn't fall for male lies. While Elena dreams of her first lover being someone special, someone romantic, someone who truly loves her, Anaïs declares that a girl's first lover should be anonymous so no male can go boast about being her first.

Breillat exposes us to sex and the volatility of adolescent emotions. Her male characters are almost stereotypical - wholly self-conscious, wholly self-centred. The student pursues his latest conquest. The father is more interested in his work and status than his children.

When Elena's relationship with the student is exposed, the parents are furious - they could lose face, it could be embarrassing. Loss of virginity ceases to be something personal - it now becomes shameful, public property. The parents have no thought for the feelings or needs of their girls. The holiday is ended and mother drives off back to the city, arguing with her children.

And the climax. Sudden. Three females, safe in their car. The hymen is shattered. And the ending ... is enigmatic. Cut by a minute and more by the censors ... leaving you to imagine what has taken place. Most of the time I feel the ending is grossly unsatisfactory, even before it was censored ... and then I think ... well. It's certainly an ending where you, as viewer, are forced to wonder what has happened and what will happen next.

Not an easy film to watch - the story is simple, but you have to work at following the emotions of the sisters. Anaïs Reboux gives an outstanding performance as the younger girl. Breillat's neo realism is disturbing ... but humorous in places. I wonder if she laughed when she found that the film would be released in the USA under the title of Fat Girl ? That seems a particularly abusive description of a fine piece of acting and a sensitive exploration of teenage identity.

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35 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A significant film marred by British censorship, 9 April 2003
By Henry Menninger (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Catherine Breillat deserves credit here – if not for achieving the brilliance of some of her earlier work, then for having the brass to push the envelope of cinematic boundaries still further. The controversial ending of “A ma sœur”, which aroused as much ire for its shocking and explicit imagery as for its baffling lack of coherence with the rest of the story (Breillat has herself admitted that this plot twist was a last-minute afterthought), HAS BEEN CUT FROM THIS VIDEO RELEASE. In the liner notes is an explanatory and none-too-apologetic message indicating that the final sequence is cut by 1m28s, although it was shown uncut in UK cinemas. It is rather disappointing that the BBFC retain the power to slice up such significant works of art unilaterally and with impunity, all in the name of “[preventing] child abuse”. If you want to make up your own mind about the ending, are not a pædophile and wish to see the film as Breillat intended it to be seen, I suggest purchasing this DVD outside of Britain, from a vendor that sells it intact.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars BBFC Vandalism of great cinema continues..., 12 Jan 2007
By Dedalus (...under milk wood) - See all my reviews
Up until watching a ma souer the work of Catherine Breillat has never truly delivered what I'd hoped it would. Her films have always, for me, seemed to reek of pretence, of self-importance, a simulacra of intelligence. Always promoting sensationalism over and above their, seemingly, vacuous content.

A ma soeur has changed my view of her work. Brilliant. Superb. Understated. Honest. Beautiful.

For me this film WAS about the nature of consent. Of ones willingness to consent and the many ways in which ones own consent may be manipulated and contrived. Under close inspection the film presents two rapes. In one instance a child consents, under the manipulation of her lover to a statuatory rape, she desires love, in offering what she believes is love in her naivety, she in fact becomes a victim. The second rape, cut by the BBFC, is consensual. She does not desire love and in a way, avoids becoming a victim. Had one been able to see the film pre-bbfc barbarism one way have a different view however. Thank you censorship for once again denying the freedom of interpretation and helping to maintain ignorance and a lack of clarity.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars One of the better films of this genre
Title was probably not the best in the world (Rendered into English as "Fat girl" but the film is certainly not as bad as the title may suggest. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Gogol

3.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, but could've been much better
After watching A Ma Soeur, I was left feeling very disappointed.
The film follows 12 year old Anais & her 15 year old sister Elena. Read more
Published 20 months ago by willow

2.0 out of 5 stars Demoralising and saddening story of teenage fantasy
I don't hold grudge against graphic and disturbing 'arts' and personally with no high moral standard, I find the movie distasteful as it depiction of two sisters holiday... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Pan Tsang

4.0 out of 5 stars A POLISHED FILM
Director Breillat is back and, as she did with "Romance", pushing the bounds of censorship in an intellectually challenging fashion. Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2007 by stuart

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Triumph for Good French Cinema
This is a terrific film and definitely hits my top 5.
Outstanding performances from Anais Reboux and Roxane Mesquida, and Catherine Breillat has captured the emotions of... Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2006

4.0 out of 5 stars The Pretty Things...
"A Ma Soeur" is an absorbing "coming of age" film about two very different teenage sisters on holiday with their parents, one of whom (Elena)is keen on being deflowered by an... Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2005 by L. Davidson

4.0 out of 5 stars great film... but what about this ending?
I won't bother reviewing this film in its entirety, as others have done it far more eloquently than I can. Read more
Published on 25 April 2005

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice film, shame about the ending
It's very important to stress that this is predominantly a good film. For 80 minutes it is intelligent and insightful. Read more
Published on 10 Aug 2004 by Sudden Impact

5.0 out of 5 stars a breath of fresh air
I was warned against watching this film, being told 'it's a bit strong' and it's often criticised for being shocking and too graphic but i see it as a breath of fresh air compared... Read more
Published on 29 May 2004 by bryonyisace

3.0 out of 5 stars Maybe I misunderstood....
I saw this film on TV in the UK, so I'm not sure if the end had been cut as another reviewer mentioned, but I'm still struggling to work out what exactly the last few minutes of... Read more
Published on 9 Nov 2003 by davektt

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