RIP Marc Meulemans

Marc Meulemans [1] (right) died of a heart attack last Friday. He was 50 years old. In the seventies he was member of the punk group De Kommeniste (1000 Titels), later he would become graphic designer for Belgian magazines such as MaoMagazine and Deng as well as sound designer for the theatrical producer Ivo van Hove (left).

When you fall for a boy

Fat Girl/À ma soeur! (2001) – Catherine Breillat

“When you fall for a boy, you try to pin him down too soon. After three days, he wants to kick his way free and get as far away as he can.”

“Oh, yeah? So let’s see who can pick up a decent boy first. Any boy. Even a fat slob like you.”

“That shows how dumb you are. You’re great physically but once they get to know you, they run a mile. They run before even getting to know you!”

“I’m just too young. They’d be scared to sleep with me.”

“But you reek of loose morals.”

“I don’t sleep around.”

“That’s the only thing you don’t do. You have a weird notion of what ‘not sleeping around’ means.”

“That’s what matters, you know.”

“I don’t think so. If I meet a man I love, I’d want to be broken in. He won’t think my first time counts. The first time should be with nobody. I don’t want a guy bragging he had me first. Guys are all sick.”

[….]

Catherine Breillat’s obsession with the dialectical nature of love and violence could not be better articulated than in the haunting last words echoed by Anaïs:

Police officer: She was in the woods. She says he didn’t rape her.

Anaïs: Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.

[…]

New Breillat film coming up

Twitchfilm reports on An Old Mistress [1], a new film by personal favourite Catherine Breillat:

Asia Argento, controversial filmmaker. Catherine Breillat, controversial filmmaker. Put the two together and it isn’t hard to imagine where they’ll likely end up. Argento is starring in Breillat’s latest, Une Vielle Maitresse, and the production company has recently posted the first batch of stills from the film to give a taste of what this will look like.

Here’s Breillat’s 2004 Rotterdam funding pitch for the film:

A costume drama An Old Mistress (Une Vieille Maitresse) adapted from the novel of the same by Barbey d’Aurevilly [The She-Devils (1874)], a book inspired by and covering much of the same ground as Choderlos De Laclos’ Dangerous Liaisons. “Une Vieille Maitresse is the parable of an affair that seems to be over and whose force is underestimated because it is thought to have blown itself out,” says Breillat. Breillat discussed the role of the manipulative and ugly old lady with Madonna. “I had a meeting with her, but she did not want to do it. It would have been extremely gratifying if she had. But perhaps if she had it would no longer have been my film. So it may be for the better.”