In ‘An Impossible Love’, director Catherine Breillat created a moving and unflinching story of awakening, which has continued to grow since its release.
Through lush country landscapes and cramped interiors seething with growing carnality, Breillat follows young Anaïs as she struggles against the shackles of religious repression symbolised by her domineering mother.
Roxane Mesquida emerges as a force of nature through her raw portrait of a girl caught between the promise of earthly pleasures and spiritual expectations. Every glance and gesture radiates her growing confusion with heartbreaking sincerity.
Meanwhile, Breillat's austere visual effects reduce the scenes to primal elements that amplify Anaïs's growing agitation and isolation and her transcendence of the shadow of shame to become master of her desires.
Although controversial at the time of its release for its graphic sexual sequences, Breillat's courage in probing the complicity of religion in obstructing self-discovery feels visionary and vindicated with the passage of time.
An Impossible Love penetrates deep into the thorniest corners of the female psyche with mesmerising power. Breillat, and Mesquida, have ensured that it endures as a defiant masterpiece. Mandatory viewing.
Un amour impossible, a French proposition | Ecency
