Fat Girl
処女
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Two sisters on holiday; twelve-year-old Anaïs witnesses the sexual abuse of her sister Elena, fifteen, by a law student. Banned in Ontario in 2001; the ban was later overturned.
Two sisters are spending the summer with their parents in the seaside town of Les Mathes. Elena, fifteen, is beautiful and knows it. Anaïs, twelve, is overweight, always eating, and teased about it by her family. Walking into town, they argue about love and virginity. Elena is saving her first time for someone who loves her; Anaïs says she would rather lose her virginity to someone she does not love, and be done with it.
At a café they meet Fernando, an Italian law student. That night he slips into the bedroom the sisters share to be with Elena, while Anaïs lies awake across the room. Elena says no. Fernando cajoles her, threatens to go to another woman, and pressures her into sex she does not want, calling it proof of love. It is the abuse of a fifteen-year-old, and Anaïs witnesses all of it. At the beach he gives Elena a ring and talks of engagement; Anaïs is openly suspicious. Another night, Elena gives him what she counts as her virginity, while Anaïs cries silently in her bed.
The next day Fernando's mother arrives to reclaim the ring, a piece from her own collection, and the girls' mother learns what has been going on. Their father has already gone back to work. Furious, the mother puts the girls in the car and sets off for home in Paris. Exhausted on the way, she pulls into a motorway rest area to sleep. A man smashes the windscreen with an axe, kills Elena, and strangles their mother. Anaïs climbs out of the car and backs away; he takes her into the woods and rapes her. When the police find her the next morning, she insists that she was not raped.
Starring
Anaïs Rebouxas Anaïs Pingot
The twelve-year-old younger sister, overweight and teased for it, who watches everything Elena does and has her own blunt ideas about love.
Anaïs Pingot’s story
Anaïs spends the holiday eating and trailing after her sister through the dreary seaside town, and tells Elena she would rather lose her virginity to someone she does not love. In the room they share she lies awake while Fernando, an Italian law student, pressures fifteen-year-old Elena into sex she does not want. It is abuse, and Anaïs sees all of it. At the beach she sits in the sea in her new dress, singing to herself, while the two go off alone. She openly doubts his ring, and on another night cries silently in her bed. On the drive home to Paris, at a motorway rest stop, a man attacks the car, kills Elena and their mother, takes Anaïs into the woods and rapes her. In the morning she tells the police she was not raped.
Roxane Mesquidaas Elena Pingot
Anaïs's fifteen-year-old sister, beautiful and romantic, who wants her first time to be with someone who loves her.
Elena Pingot’s story
At a café in the seaside town, Elena meets Fernando, an Italian law student, and that night he slips into the room she shares with Anaïs. She says no. He coaxes her, threatens to go to another woman and calls it proof of love, until she gives in to sex she does not want: it is the abuse of a fifteen-year-old. On the beach he gives her a ring, and she shows it to Anaïs as an engagement ring. The next day Fernando's mother comes to take back the ring, which is hers, and the girls' mother learns everything. Furious, she drives them back towards Paris and stops at a motorway rest area to sleep. A man attacks the car and kills Elena.
Libero De Rienzoas Fernando
An Italian law student on holiday, who pursues Elena with promises and pressure.
Arsinée Khanjianas Mrs Pingot
The sisters' mother, little involved in their lives and harsh about Anaïs's weight, who drives them home in anger when she learns of Fernando.
Laura Bettias Fernando's mother
Fernando's mother, who comes to take back the ring her son gave Elena.
Why it matters
Fat Girl is about the distance between the romance girls are promised and what actually happens to them. Catherine Breillat strips a fifteen-year-old's first experience of sex of every romance: it is coerced, wrapped in words about love, and watched by a younger sister who is learning from it. Its frankness about teenage sexuality led to a ban in the Canadian province of Ontario in 2001, later overturned, and the British censors cut the final rape scene from the video release out of concern that abusers could misuse it. The ending comes without warning, and it refuses every comfort. Anaïs's insistence that she was not raped leaves an observer with the hardest question the film asks: what a girl must tell herself in order to survive what was done to her, and what it costs her to say it.