In her second deconstruction of a classic fairy tale, Catherine
Breillat has taken on the story of The Sleeping Beauty as first
imagined by Charles Perrault in the seventeenth century. In turning the
sweet children's fairy tale into a coming of age fantasy filled with
sexual tension, Breillat challenges our conventional notions of
childhood and asks us to confront our fears about growing up, a topic
far removed from the banalities of Walt Disney animation. Like her
previous work Bluebeard, Breillat's version of The Sleeping Beauty
establishes the world of children as one filled with both terror and
unimagined beauty. It is a world that is playful, erotic, frightening,
and magical.
In the classic tale, a wicked fairy curses a young infant girl by
proclaiming that when she reaches the age of 15, she will prick her
finger on a spindle and die. Unable to completely reverse the spell,
one of the good fairies says that the princess will instead sleep for a
hundred years until awakened by the kiss of a prince with whom she will
live happily ever after. In Breillat's version, the infant is cursed by
the fairy Carabosse (Rosine Favey) to die at an early age as three good
fairies (Dounia Sichov, Leslie Lipkins and Camille Chalons) stand
by.
The good fairies cannot reverse the witch's curse but they can modify
it, declaring that the girl at age six will fall into a sleep for 100
years and then wake up as a beautiful 16-year old teen. The girl,
Anastasia (Carla Besainou), evoking Alice in Wonderland, looks for her
love in dream sequences that fill the majority of the 82-minute film.
In the vividly imagined dreamscape, Anastasia rebels against the notion
of girls as princesses who are asked to be polite and stay out of
sight. She declares that she wishes her name was Vladimir and discards
her furs and dainty dresses. In the first sequence, one of the best,
she visits a French family in a remote forest where she is lovingly
taken in by a widow (Anne-Lise Kedves), then becomes enamored with her
teenage son (Kerian Mayan) in scenes that evoke a world of innocence
and purity.
The boy, however, is lured by the mythical Snow Queen (Romane Portail)
even though warned by his mother and turns hardhearted and cold.
Undaunted by his sudden turn, the young Anastasia looks up the
definition of the word puberty in the dictionary and then goes to
search for him. In scenes of breathtaking beauty created by the
cinematography of Denis Lenoir and the art direction of Francois-Renaud
Labarthe, Anastasia traverses a world of magical trains, albino rulers,
dwarf station masters, a knife-wielding gypsy, and enchanted
animals.
Although Anastasia says that she hates the world of little girls, she
exists in a world of enduring childhood, all created from the dark
imaginings and erotic longings of her mind which become real when the
now sixteen year old Anastasia (Julia Artamanov) at last wakes from her
dream and experiences loves from both a woman, Gypsy girl (Rhizlaine El
Cohen), and a man, Johan (David Chausse), the great grandson of Peter.
The Sleeping Beauty continues in the mode that Breillat is known for -
exploring the world of female sexuality by using a fairy tale to
encompass both the safe and the loving as well as the dangerous and
forbidden, always threatening our comfort levels, yet providing a grand
piece of entertainment.
GRADE: A-
Seen at the Vancouver International Film Festival
