One person’s irresistible obsession can look like madness to someone else, and the tension between these two points is what drives Catherine Breillat’s Last Summer. It’s a film that asks the viewer to accept the motives and behaviors of two characters whose actions fall well outside the bounds of decency. How willing you are to watch it happen will determine your ability to enjoy this film, which turns on nuanced performances and Breillat’s signature style of long takes and quiet moments that buzz with tension. You may not be able to relate to the choices the characters make, but you may well be fascinated to find out what consequences they incur.
Breillat’s script, written with Pascal Bonitzer and Maren Louise Käehne, centers us in the idyllic household of a wealthy family living in the French countryside. Anne (Léa Drucker) is a successful lawyer who defends the underage victims of sexual abuse. In the opening scene, we witness her ability to connect with and coach a young girl in preparation for the anticipated attacks on her morality. The ironies are already being teed up, and it isn’t long before Anne’s own morality is under attack, as a direct result of her easy rapport with another teenager.
Théo (Samuel Kircher) is the teenage son of Anne’s husband, Pierre (Olivier Rabourdin), and a disruptive presence in the home they share with their much younger adopted daughters. Théo lounges around shirtless, smoking cigarettes and staring at his phone, rebuffing any adult interaction with sullenness or outright hostility. Something about his affect seems to present a challenge to Anne, who vacillates between trying to establish her authority as the stepmother and trying to forge a meaningful connection, just as she would do with her young clients. Breillat’s camera lingers over Théo’s half-naked body, intercut with sometimes uncomfortably long close ups of the two of them as she tries to negotiate a kind of truce. They spend a lot of time lounging on the patio and strolling in the garden, smoking cigarettes and drinking. The pieces are in place for a slide into seduction, and it doesn’t take long for it to happen.
All the interiority of these characters comes from the actors’ faces and delivery, and the cool, objective view of the camera. Théo is clearly enjoying himself as a horny adolescent, but can’t Anne foresee the disaster she’s cooking up, let alone the depravity of sleeping with her stepson who is, after all, still a child? The script is lean and efficient, allowing events to play out without reliance on backstory or exposition. The sex scenes are breathless and awkward without being lurid or explicit. Everyone’s lives get messy very quickly, and it doesn’t take long before Anne’s terrible secret is out. Théo, in his petulance, doesn’t respond well to being pushed away in an attempt at propriety that comes much too late. Even worse, Anne keeps allowing herself to fall back into temptation long after it’s clear that her actions are threatening the integrity of the whole family.
Drucker’s performance carries most of the weight of this tale of moral collapse. She invests the role with poise and confidence, a glass of white wine almost always in her hand, and we can also see the flickers of doubt and stirrings of desire that she allows herself to give in to. When it’s time to deny everything, she’s convincing in the way that maybe only a lawyer could be.
This is not a subtle story, with taboos stacked on top of ironies, but it is subtly told. There’s scarcely any score at all, with music playing only while Anne is driving around in her convertible (listening to, strangely enough, Sonic Youth). The camera’s insistence on observing these characters up close gives the film the feel of an ominous dream, especially as Anne’s paranoia sets in. We know that she knows she shouldn’t be doing what she’s doing, and we also know that something beyond her comprehension is driving her. That’s a terrifying situation, and Last Summer invites us to witness it with unblinking clarity. The final shot, with a slow fade to black and one gleaming point of light, is a masterstroke of ambiguity. Has she gotten away with it? Or has she finally destroyed everything? The answer to that depends on your own moral instinct, and whether you think society’s judgment supersedes one’s own conscience. She knows what she did, and after watching Last Summer, so will you.
Photo courtesy of Sideshow / Janus Films
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