Catherine Breillat (France)
Catherine Breillat makes films at once brilliant and loathsome. In this one, pretty Elena torments her obese 12-year-old sister Anais by kissing boys in front of her. Anais composes dire songs of self-loathing which she sings to the aluminum ladder in the swimming pool. Breillat has a misanthrope's perfect understanding of Anais's damaged psyche and the Darwinian cruelty of sisterly relationships. She patronizes "normal" behavior: Elena's loss of virginity is presented as a tedious documentary of male wheedling and female vanity. But Breillat is a skilful master of montage, as shown in the sequence where the mother weaves through a wilderness of freeway traffic while rushing her transgressing child back to Paris. We are wrestling with all of this when, quite suddenly, the film changes genres and a horrific, ludicrous explosion of violence destroys the family. The film leaves the viewer feeling bruised and insulted; but if you try to forget it, you find you cannot. - R.C.

(Sept. 8, 10 p.m., Uptown 3; Sept 9, 3:30 p.m., Isabel Bader Theatre)