STARRING Amira Casar, Rocco Siffredi
CERTIFICATION 18: Contains strong sexual detail and strobing effects
RUN TIME 77 mins approx, Tartan
LANGUAGE French
COVERLINE 'WARNING: THIS FILM CONTAINS SCENES WHICH MAY OFFEND' (IN CAPITAL LETTERS)
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT Director Catherine Breillat started writing explicit novels at the age of 17 (L'homme facile); in 1999, she cast porn star Rocco Siffredi in his first mainstream film. Romance tells the story of a young woman teacher who, unhappy in her relationship, meets a man (Siffredi) with whom she explores ever more extreme sexual experiences. In the succeeding years Breillat directed such well-received, provocative, fare as A ma soeur (2001) and Sex is Comedy (2002). After a gap of five years, this is her return to working with Siffredi in a role she wrote specially for him, based on her novel Pornocratie.
THE PLOT A man goes down on another man outside a gay club. Inside, 'the woman', as she is referred to, is approached by a man but brushes him off; she goes to the toilet, bumping into another man on the way (Siffredi). In the toilet, 'the woman' slits her left wrist with a razor; 'the man' finds her and takes her to a pharmacy. Afterwards she goes down on him in the street; she makes him a work proposition: he is to come and visit her in her home and watch her explore herself sexually.
The proposal takes place over four nights and, from initial observer, he is soon drawn into sex with her and stays until morning. On the last day he accepts payment from her and leaves her wallowing in her own waste, he says. In a bar, he shares his woes with another drinker. When 'the man' returns to the house he finds it deserted and the bed dismantled. He pictures himself pushing the woman off the cliff into the sea.
THE FILM A stern, written notice at the beginning of Anatomy of Hell says: 'A film is an illusion, not reality-fiction or a happening. It is a true work of fiction. For the actress's most intimate scenes, a body double was used. It's not her body, it's an extension of a fictional character.' Presumably this was placed at the request of the actress, Amira Casar, but it provokes a host of questions, not least why Breillat didn't use an actress who was willing to appear without a body double.
The scenes are extremely intimate but the owner of the female genitalia shown in close-up (having a finger inserted or expelling objects; more of that later) is named: Pauline Hunt (unless this is some form of rhyming slang). These may not be Casar's bits, but they nevertheless belong to someone, and Breillat has taken a decision to show them unflinchingly.
There's no such coyness about Siffredi, whose erect penis is shown several times; a seasoned porn star, his inclusion is also nonetheless initially puzzling. His character is gay so you might assume there would be little sexual activity between them that requires Siffredi's experience to come into play. 'The man's' sexuality is never referred to directly, 'the woman' uses such euphemisms as 'you people' or simply the plural 'you'.
Despite its voyeuristic premise, Anatomy of Hell is a very talky movie, perhaps predictably for a novelist. The characters speak in sweeping statements and many of them feature male stereotypes of women, as well as straight women's stereotypes of gay men ('People like you don't look at women,' she says early on). The man is horrified by women's bodies: their colour, the lips, the form, sweat; he compares shaved skin to that of a plucked chicken and, even less favourably, to a frog.
The first night he visits her, wearing a white suit, he complains about the cost - for which he will be recompensed - of visiting her isolated coastal home. The bedroom set where most of the action takes place reminds me of something from a sketch by Paula Rego or de Chirico; the raging sea outside is pure Hitchcock or Pandora and the Flying Dutchman. 'Why do you exhibit yourself this way?' he asks. 'The fragility of female flesh inspires disgust or brutality,' she opines in (a form of) response.
Breillat provides a voice-over to the film that elides into 'the man's' point of view. There are two scenes of childhood, strongly influenced by Georges Bataille: in the first, a boy climbs a tree to feed worms to some freshly hatched birds, which later remind him of the flesh and look of a vagina in its nest. The boy carefully places one of the chicks in his shirt pocket but on the climb back down it is is killed; he throws it on the ground and stamps on it. In the second memory, a young girl strips and lies down in exactly the pose from Marcel Duchamp's Etant donnés; the boys with her insert the arm of some spectacles into her vagina and pull it out bearing her 'slime', as 'the man' sees it.
Over the course of their transaction, the couple's relationship changes: when he arrives the second night, she has dressed up, in black, from the previous white, and done her hair, though he immediately strips her and undoes her hairclip (the red of the room prefigures her menstruation; he wears a cross); on the third night he finds the house unlocked and is protective ('Anyone could have come in').
After the couple have sex for the final time, 'the man's' penis is covered in blood when he withdraws. It is so bloody, the scene is reminiscent of the male dismemberment in Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses. While it seems like an emasculation, a drawing together of both of them, the couple discuss the significance of the blood: 'Man can't give life,' he says; 'He gives death and so gives eternal life,' she responds.
'The man' goes to a bar and gets drunk; he has a discussion about the relationship that is a parody of heterosexual male conversations: She's a slut, the Queen of Sluts. Hump as many as you can, replies his drinking partner, like goats. In the age-old fantasy, the right sex has seemingly set him straight. Back at the deserted house, the only trace he finds of their relationship is a folded, blood-stained sheet, as if 'the woman' knew 'the man' would be back, and has left him this memento.
KEY SCENES Chapter 6 27:31 'The man' puts his finger in 'the woman's vagina (shown in detail) before removing it and examining the traces on his digit. She gets the giggles.
Chapter 8 33:15 As 'the woman' sleeps, 'the man' parts her thighs from behind and paints first her labia (lips) and then her anus with a lipstick, creating a gaudy mouth, before applying it to her face.
Chapter 9, 35:24 Again, as she lies apparently asleep, he has sex with her from behind.
Chapter 11, 46:40 'The man' goes to the garden and chooses a three-pronged wooden rake. When he returns to the room, he inserts its handle between the legs of the sleeping woman.
Chapter 12, 52:56 'The woman' pulls a tampon out of her vagina. She dangles it like a dead mouse, then drops it into a glass of water like a teabag. The man and woman drink from the glass.
Chapter 13, 58:58 'The woman' pushes a stone dildo out from her vagina (this is shown in close up). 'The man' wanks her with it before they have sex.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT Breillat's latest films are less explicit but no less powerful: The Last Mistress (2007) features the wonderful Asia Argento (and includes Casar in the cast), and there have been two fairytale adaptations, reminiscent of the work of Angela Carter, Bluebeard (2009) and Sleeping Beauty (2010). Siffredi has returned to porn, where he is prolific, notably in his own 'Animal Trainer' and 'Puppet Master' series.
KEY QUOTE 'You talk too much' - 'The man'
BONUS CURIO (or, A Brush with Nipples Pt II) As has happened elsewhere, Casar's appearance undergoes slight changes for Anatomy of Hell's DVD cover image in different territories, from having a breast exposed (below, as it is in the relevant scene in the film) to being covered with a nightdress (top). My, UK, version has her naked, but with a nipple airbrushed away, unnervingly.
