36 Fillette

Description

While on vacation with her family, fourteen year old Lili vows to lose her virginity. She attracts the attention of a good looking, middle-aged playboy and with the skill of an adult and the naivete of a child, she seduces him. Her involvement with this older man and a chance encounter with a musician further her journey toward sexual awakening.

Customer Reviews:

Breillat is a film genius........2007-09-15

Catherine Breillat (1948) is a brilliant French filmmaker, director and novelist. Her films are intended to take us places we've never been before, and usually outside our comfort zones with their depictions of hard sexual truths. As a result, Breillat no stranger to controversy. Although 36 Fillette (1988) is not among my favorite Breillat films (which include Fat Girl - Criterion Collection, Romance, and Brief Crossing (Breve Traversee)) it is nevertheless a worthwhile film (despite the poor film-to-dvd transfer quality).

As a precursor to her later work, Breillat's film confronts issues of sex and violence and contains provocative themes common to all of her later work. 36 Fillette tells the story of Lili (Delphine Zentout), a tempestuous 14-year-old French girl who flirts with one man after the next while vacationing with her family near Biarritz. She has decided it is "miserable" to be a virgin, and believes she is ready now lose her virginity at any risk. Despite her adolescent pout, Lili is depicted as a child in a woman's body, which (as the film's title also suggests) seems to be Breillat's point here: that in matters of sexuality, we are naive children living in adult-sized bodies. Zentout and Jean-Pierre Leaud (Francois Truffaut's Adventures of Antoine Doinel (The 400 Blows / Antoine & Collette / Stolen Kisses / Bed & Board / Love on the Run) - Criterion Collection) bring excellent performances to the film. It would be difficult to find Breillat's intellectualized sexual dialogue happening anywhere else in cinema, and like all of her films, this is a film people should be debating afterwards in cafes, bars, and their bedrooms.

G. Merritt

Frustrating.......2006-08-16

Another frank and earnest film from director Catherine Breillat, who seems to have a knack for inviting controversy. Unlike some other reviewers, I thought this movie seemed very realistic. Many young people are curious about it would be like to have all the advantages of adulthood and are quick to experiment. How easy it is for a young lady, in this case fourteen, to attract an older man for such experimentation. The volunteers are potentially endless. We get a strong sense of the angst she is feeling as she goes through this confusing time as a teenager: still a girl, yet developed physically as a woman. It is not a great film by any means, but I consider it at least good. That is more than I can say for the quality of the DVD, however. As others have commented, it is not widescreen and the transfer appears to be from an old VHS tape. 3 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD. (To have an inferior DVD is better than having no DVD, I suppose)

Hmmm!.......2006-07-28

First off, this little girl is a real bitch. As with most younger people; they want to be grown up before they're actually ready. I don't think it's very close to reality, but it does tell a reasonably interesting story.
I like the director... but compared, this isn't the best work.

Not one of Catherine's better films.......2006-02-19

You would be better off with "Fat Girl" or "A Very Young Girl" than this film about a pouty fourteen year-old brat whose life ambition apparently is just to have sex, but she is painfully conflicted and confused about how to go about it. The ogre she chooses is not much of a looker himself and she tells him so outright, with her amazing social skills. Not much of a storyline here as you can see, and the eye candy is rather on the pathetic side. Mostly the scenes are gross, if anything.

The video quality is about what you might expect from a bootleg VHS tape, i.e. very poor, and the sound quality matches the video quality.

"I want to matter.".......2003-06-22

The film "36 Fillette" (which refers to a size of French female clothing) from director Catherine Breillat is bound to outrage some viewers with its controversial content. It's the story of a 14 year-old French girl named Lili (Delphine Zentout) who is on holiday with her hideous family. Thrown together in a small space with the theory that they are there to have a good time, they are soon at each other's throats. Lili, who doesn't even try to hide the contempt she has for her parents, persuades her brother to take her to a disco. The siblings depart with the idea that the older brother is in charge, but once away from her parents, Lili makes it clear that no-one is going to restrain her in any way. Lili's hitchhiking leads them to meet a middle-aged, jaded playboy named Maurice (Etienne Chicot). Lili's provocative behaviour is aimed at getting Maurice's attention, and she certainly manages to do just that. And so an odd relationship between Lili and Maurice begins.

Lili practices her new-found feminine wiles on several men in the film. She very quickly gets the hang of it, though, and she progresses rapidly from the pathetically and frankly obvious and becomes slyly manipulative. On one level, she is just a child, and pouts and throws tantrums when things don't go as she intended. But on the other hand, she is also at core an extremely hardened person. Maurice, naturally, as the morally reprehensible older man, pulls the strings, but sympathy is out-of-place for Lili's character, for she's unpleasant and as tough-as-nails. It is easy to immediately dismiss this film. One has the distinct impression that Lili is just gearing up with Maurice, honing her skills, and getting ready for the next one. It is easy to shake one's head, and tut tut about Maurice corrupting Lili with the disappointing and simultaneously pathetic introduction to sex, but if it's possible to put judgement aside, there is a great character study here. Is Maurice using Lili? Is Lili using Maurice, or are they using each other? The acting is excellent, and the family scenes are particularly delicious. The DVD quality was not the best, however. Many scenes were a bit murky. If you enjoyed the films "Lolita," "Beau Pere" and "The Disenchanted," there is an excellent chance that you'll enjoy this film.--displacedhuman.

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