French film reveals the true nature of the beast

Special: Sex & Health

French filmmakers seem to have a lot to say about sex. From Louis Malle’s “Le soufflé au Coeur” (“Murmur of the Heart”) (1971), to Maurice Pialat’s “À nos amours” (“To our loves”) (1983), to Ziad Doueiri’s “Lila dit ça” (“Lila says”) (2004), it is obvious that sex has been on the mind of the French for decades.

The sex featured in French films of this type occurs most frequently with or because of a strong-willed and dangerous French femme fatale. This dominating female figure—whether it is young Laurent’s mother in Malle’s film, a grown woman and mother of three still in her sexual prime, or Doueiri and Pialat’s young women who use sex to rebel—it is the image of the willful and proud female as a sexual predator who takes no prisoners that seems to intrigue these directors and their respective audiences.

This icon, however, is not exclusive to French films or even to the world of cinema itself. It is an intoxicating figure that has been around since before film was even a distant dream. From Greek mythology’s proud and jealous queen Hera and the Sirens who seduced sailors to their deaths, to the demonic succubi, according to medieval legend, who seduce men to have sex with them in their dreams, females who exist as sexual beings can be threatening, dangerous, and even evil.

The women in today’s cinéma français are removed from this position as evil incarnate, but the evolution from the mythological witches of yore to Sandrine Bonnaire’s Suzanne in “À nos amours” seems undeniable. The power these women yield through their desirousness and sensuality is what makes them provocateurs—sexual trouble-makers.

The women in these films are made by a precarious craft of creating a sympathetic sex fiend. This method transforms the demonic sexual predator into an understandable, utterly human character.

Besides lacking fishy scales, thunderbolt-wielding husbands, and magical powers to enter into men’s dreams, these women also lack the demoniacal attributes that once made them so scary. Suzanne cannot deny Sirens and succubi in her vast heritage somewhere, but she can relate as a real human and not a villainous sex addict devoid of emotion. 

These French directors thus achieve their art in combining the elements of predatory and dangerous sexuality with the modern woman, one who is just looking to get by. These women reveal their true natures not as heartless captors of male prey, but as fragile and vulnerable people finding their way through the world.

Their sexuality becomes tied directly to that humanity they exhibit so delicately—their sexuality reveals their confidence and proud sense of self, sure, but it simultaneously also deals with their self-consciousness, doubt and fragility. American films do not treat sex this way: the likes of Angelina Jolie and others have pornographic, base and unreal sex on camera. The French cinematographer has found, through characters like Suzanne and Laurent’s mother, the true way of depicting women as related to their sexuality, the utterly human way of contradictions and complexities.