A Ma Soeur! [2001] [DVD]

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.