The Cinematheque

July 14 Screening Added

“There’s nothing obvious about this movie … An extraordinarily complex inquiry into desire and power.”

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Catherine Breillat’s triumphant return after a decade-long absence betrays not a hint of rust or laurel-resting for the perennially provocative auteur. A remake of the 2019 Danish film Queen of Hearts, adapted brilliantly into the Breillat vernacular with the aid of screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer, Last Summer relates a sunkissed tale of sexual trespass between a mother and underage stepson. Anne (Léa Drucker, excellent), a Parisian child-abuse lawyer, enjoys a cushy domesticity with husband Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin) and their two young daughters. The arrival of Pierre’s angsty 17-year-old son (Samuel Kircher) precipitates a series of lustful, illicit encounters—protracted onscreen to a comically discomfiting degree—and wickedly unpredictable turns of allegiance. The film never tips its hand as to the inner machinations of Anne’s transgression, and its moral agnosticism, a Breillat stamp of authenticity, leaves it to the audience to arbitrate wrongdoings. Songs by Sonic Youth and Kim Gordon’s Body/​Head are expertly employed.

In French with English subtitles

The opening-night screening on July 11 will include a series introduction by Artistic Director Shaun Inouye.

“Breillat’s long-awaited return engages anew with the filmmaker’s perennial fixations: the friction between marital love and carnal desire, the rejection of victimhood, and the expression of a sexual freedom that disavows the strictures of propriety.”

Beatrice Loayza, Film Comment

“Breillat’s most heartbreaking film to date … The genius of Breillat’s storytelling and visual concept … lies in the fact that [Anne’s] morality is impossible to pin down.”

Ela Bittencourt, Sight and Sound