Catherine Breillat Talks Taboo-Breaking Love Story Between Child Lawyer & Teenage Stepson In Cannes Film ‘Last Summer’: “She Is Not A Predator!”
26.05.2023 - 11:59
/ deadline.com
French director Catherine Breillat has been breaking taboos throughout her career and her new Cannes Palme d’Or contender Last Summer is no exception.
The erotic thriller stars Lea Drucker as Anne, a family lawyer specializing in child protection, who embarks on a forbidden affair with her dissolute 17-year-old stepson Theo (Samuel Kircher), with devasting consequences. Read Stephanie Bunbury’s review for Deadline here.
The film has been warmly received in Cannes where it world premiered to a long standing ovation on Thursday evening.
Breillat addressed the provocative plotline in the press conference for the film on Friday, saying the initial relationship between Anne and Theo was “pure love”.
“I think that when they fall in love it’s unconscious, there’s a kind of happiness, a sort of intoxication that takes over. They’re not analyzing what’s going on. That’s why she is not a predator, it’s something else,” said Breillat.
Drucker said that she had been guided by Breillat and the other actors in the cast for her interpretation of Anne without “judging or condemning” her character’s actions.
“Knowing that I was working with Catherine, I was ready to be inspired by her character, her view on the world which is so singular and I let myself be transported. I went on this voyage,” she explained. “As an actor, you are like a leaf on water.”
The actress added that she had questioned Breillat and producer Saïd Ben Saïd in depth about their intentions for the physical love scenes and how they would be handled.“The conversations began a long time before the shoot… I asked them to explain very concretely what the scenes would involve. I have my limits and there are things I know I can’t do,” she said.
“Catherine drew the