Programmer's Note

Two of Polish director Malgoska Szumowska’s films have played at previous editions of the Festival, but despite the promise evident in those works, it is safe to say that Elles feels like the arrival of a significant new voice. Working in France, with the incomparable Juliette Binoche grounding her new film, Szumowska has moved into dark and con­troversial territory. Yet while the material is subversive and troubling, she keeps a firm authorial reign. Her ability to probe deeply into the sexual recesses of contemporary society is impressive enough; the range of control she exerts, over a story that in lesser hands could have proven unman­ageable, is startling.

Binoche, surely one of the most inquisi­tive and daring actors working in cinema today, plays Anne, a wife, mother and — most importantly — a journalist cur­rently researching an article about student prostitution for the French edition of ELLE magazine. Anne finds herself drawn to two young women: a down-on-her-luck Polish student and a French girl who comes from one of Paris’ many anonymous housing projects. Both women have entered the sex trade for different reasons, and as they open up to Anne, we are allowed glimpses of the reality of their work. Meanwhile, Anne is forced to confront the bourgeois reality of her own life, where her husband seems married to his cellphone and her son to his PlayStation.

The sordid scenes of various sexual devia­tions and couplings play out against the humour and naturalness that both girls bring to their encounters with Anne, where they talk with complete frankness about their lives. A bold mix of Buñuel’s Belle de jour and Godard’s 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle — the result being something entirely new — Szumowska’s film dares to explore a precarious region where perhaps only Catherine Breillat has ventured before. Female sexuality, in all its complexity, is placed under a microscope, turning Elles into a must-see film from a director whose talent has finally flourished in full bloom. Piers Handling