Synopsis
A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.
Sex Is Comedy
2002 Directed by Catherine Breillat
Cast
Director
Producer
Writer
Editors
Sound
Make-Up
Popular reviews
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"This isn't actually a comedy hur hur." Thanks, every review out there. I just want to know what Roxane Mesquida's take on all this was, but all I can find are Roger Ebert's tone deaf, idiotic review (holy shit it's bad), and everyone else repeating that this film isn't actually a comedy. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. You'll all go into this defended against accidentally enjoying yourselves!
It ends with the director eating a banana. How is that not a comedy, you jerks?
Breillat is "not a feminist" the way oxygen is "not an element," which is to say, what the fuck are you talking about. Perhaps your work is not specifically designed as a tool to empower women,…
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I learnt more from this than I did with Truffaut’s Day For Night. Enjoyed it a lot more, too. Based on Breillat’s experience directing Fat Girl, her surrogate character Jeanne films an intimate sex scene between two actors who hate each other. To make this even more meta, Roxane Mesquida basically plays herself reprising her own role from Fat Girl. It’s an interesting discussion on how to direct certain actors, and how finding that balance between forceful and friendly can be the difference between a scene failing spectacularly or eking out the specks of good acting from an otherwise lousy performer. I appreciate how in-depth this was in regards to the filmmaking process. It could easily pass as a documentary,…
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Who’d have thought being an actor on the set of a Catherine Breillat movie would be an awkward, unpleasant experience? These revelations and more are to be found in Sex Is Comedy. I suspect much of this is autobiographical with equal parts embellished. The Brelliat surrogate, for instance, is played by Anne Parillaud, all full of deep philosophical musings and unafraid to get up close and personal with her actors. I suspect this is self aggrandisement on her part since the real Brelliat you often hear about is a tyrannical monster.
Still, this film does chart the trials and tribulations of how it must feel to be a handsome stud actor sporting an erect 9 inch prosthetic dong and the burden it carries. I feel more sorry for the guy in Brelliat’s other movie Romance who must have had the smallest dick in France. Everyone must get PTSD being in her movies.
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To every dickhead who says “tHiS iSnT a cOmEdY” wtf are you talking about?! This shit is hilarious.
Obviously there are serious moments but the film is playful as fuck. Breillat has a true wit that really shines here.
This really made me want to be a director. Catherine Breillat please let me be your AD I know zero French and nothing about filmmaking but I love youuuuuu
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A sex scene is to be shot and the actors hate each other. Does a better combination exist?
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Der Film dokumentiert mit welchen Mitteln der Regie filmische Glaubwürdigkeit entsteht, wenn weder die Chemie zwischen den Darstellern stimmt, noch deren Motivation besonders hoch ist. Dabei führt der Titel etwas auf den Holzweg, denn bei allem Geist und sämtlichem Humor, den die Regisseurin, grossartig und kompromisslos gespielt von Anne Parillaud, an den Tag legt, sind es ihre Hinterhalte und ganze Dramen, die offensichtlich notwendig sind, um eine Defloration abseits von typischen Darstellungen zu thematisieren.
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So cool, knowing it's autobiographical. One of the greatest looks at the anatomy of filmmaking and a truly feminist work.
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"A director is a predator, you drag the emotion out of them! It becomes yours, your name's on the film. The actors are the film's basic material. That's how it is. Humanly it's appalling."
I was stirred by this frank remark made by Anne Parillaud's character, who plays a thinly veiled representation of Catherine Breillat herself in a movie about the making of the central scene from Breillat's own Fat Girl. The philosophy behind the quote is essentially Hitchcock's "actors are cattle" mantra. Some reports from Breillat's actors suggest there's some sincerity to this (remember: a few years ago, Asia Argento claimed "Breillat is the most sadistic and downright evil director I’ve ever worked with"). Yet despite Parillaud's character's confession…
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I’m not sure how it would play for those who haven’t seen FAT GIRL, but I believe this is Catherine Breillat’s best work! 🍌
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Ao refletir sobre os meandros cinematográficos da concepção de uma cena de sexo, o filme lida com toda uma engenharia social de sutilezas, ambiguidades voyeurísticas e outros fetiches implícitos. A alegoria breillatiana é desconstruída tanto no sentido de uma temática como de uma forma. Existe uma narrativa interna dos bastidores muito bem situada, um microcosmo no ambiente do estúdio que vai além de um mero flerte metalinguístico, lida com circunstâncias concretas. Estamos diante de um filme não só sobre a encenação do sexo, mas um filme sobre o sexo. A cena final deixa isso mais do que claro, toda a trajetória criativa, todo o rodeio relacional, vira pó quando a encenação em si supera qualquer poder de sugestão; o registro instintivo da circunstância sexual revela a aptidão cinematográfica do ato.
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always unwise of a director to make a movie that asks, “was my most famous feature worth the trouble?”. anyway gonna double feature this with Dirty Work RIP Norm
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sex is comedy and its punchline is gregoire colin waggling around an excessively large prosthetic boner