The shoes would have been the perfect bling to flash at the security guards who double as red-carpet fashion police at the evening galas and who seem unaware that Yves Saint Laurent became the most influential designer of the second half of the 20th century by putting women in pants day and night.
The seductively lit but dim-witted saga was not a minute underway when an oddly positioned camera angle set off a warning light in my feminist brain, even as I was trying to not remind myself that Kechiche was also the director of that voyeuristic wallow in female abjection, Black Venus. Why, I wondered, in a shot that introduces the central character as she walks to school, is the focal point her ass? True, it is a lovely ass, even in a nondescript skirt, and we soon see more of it, and still more again.
I believe this is the climax of Chapter 1. The scene was received by the majority of critics as if it was a revelation, and by some as if the sex was real. Seydoux put the latter misperception to rest when she explained that she and her co-star wore prosthetic vaginas to protect their modesty.
While much pasta is scarfed down in the dinner scenes at which the director excels, no pussy is actually eaten. The actors deserve credit for playing their characters with such conviction.
The problem is that very little about the way Kechiche has conceived these characters rings true. I would go further: what is missing are recognizable contemporary young women, regardless of their sexual preference. More than 40 years of struggle over the representation of women seems to have made no impression on Kechiche. The same may be true of other directors, but they have not deigned or dared to walk into such a minefield. Who determined that the definition of beauty in art is to be found in these male representations of women?
