Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Feminisme... Porno... Punk... Mutantes

Mutantes is a French documentary film on pro-sex feminism by Virginie Despentes, filmed in the US, Spain and France. Sounds like just the kind of film they should've asked Catherine Breillat to participate in, right? Well, they did and she accepted, 'cause she's in this movie, which is no available on DVD! The film is comprised of about twenty interviews, including Breillat, and lots of footage of live performances and films. I should warn you guys, I guess, that this is the equivalent of an NC-17 rating with hardcore footage... but if you're a Breillat fan, I'm assuming you're not too uptight about such things. ;)

How is the DVD as far as English language options? Excellent! Not only is the film subtitled into English (or French, or Spanish), but so are the extras, the packaging, the menus, and even the booklet - everything is written out twice... once in French and again in English. The disc is region free, NTSC, and it's just clear a lot of care went into this DVD presentation.

Better still for Breillat fans, the extras include an additional ten-minute interview with Breillat. You may have to poke around the internet a bit to find a copy; but I'll make it easy for ya: amazon.fr has it.

Update 10/5/11 - I figured I'd post a bit more about the film, since I think this post might bring up as many questions as it answers. Breillat's participation in the film is relatively brief... Certainly less than five minutes worth of screen time (if you're coming to this strictly as a Breillat fan, the bonus interview in the extras is more rewarding than the film itself), and she doesn't really discuss her work so much as touch on issues of "post-porn" and feminism in general. Most of the film is dedicated to showcasing the artists' work (and, if you're interested, the extras also include several of the live performances in full), and Breillat is just included for some brief commentary on the general overview set-up, not her own art. It's a bit of a shame they didn't have her discuss a couple of her racier films, like Anatomy of Hell or Romance X, since they seem to fit the thesis of the film better than some of the work they presented instead, but oh well. It starts out as a cohesive documentary on the cross and joint purposes of pornography and feminism; but after the first fifteen minutes or so, it drops that focus. If you liked those Real Sex episodes that HBO used to air, this film is very much like one of those, breezily drifting from one sex show to the next.

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