'Une Fille Facile' Preview: Coming-of-age French film seeks to portray women's sexuality like that of men
Rebecca Zlotowski’s film ‘Une Fille Facile’ or ‘An Easy Girl’ follows Naima (Mina Farid), a 16-year-old who lives in Cannes, the famous resort town on the French Riviera. During the summer, when she has important decisions to make -- to choose what she wants to do with her life -- her cousin Sofia (Zahia Dehar) arrives. Naima is soon drawn into her cousin's free-spirited lifestyle, despite warnings from her concerned best friend.
But there is more to it than just the summer adventure of two women in what is possibly one of the most picturesque parts of the world. The idea of ‘Une Fille Facile’ is deeper than parties on boats, sunbathing on beaches, and dancing at discotheques. The film promises to question some complex ideas.
For one, the film’s title is intriguing. The cultural connotations of the term “easy” with respect to women have always been that of promiscuity and has judgemental overtones. But Perhaps the filmmaker challenges this very notion with Sofia’s character. “You can take it literally -- she’s a slut,” said Zlotowski of Sofia in an interview with Cineuropa.
She added, “She would be totally okay with this, which is interesting and modern in itself. And you can also ask yourself, ‘Who has the dominant part here?’ Is it the girl with the aggressive sexuality and the almost painted-on designer dress, or the guy with the giant yacht who enjoys gourmet dinners right in front of poor people? I wanted to raise these questions for everyone to reflect on.”
In that respect, the choice of the actor is important as well. Dehar was a French-Algerian teenager, just an 18-year-old, when she woke up to find her picture on the front of France’s newspapers. She was caught up in an underage prostitution scandal involving members of the national football squad. According to reports, Dehar was an escort to star player Franck Ribéry, and she was just 17 at the time of the incident.
Yet, more than a decade later, Dehar, who could have been tainted with the stigma of the incident all her life, is really thriving. “I had the choice between killing myself or going forward. I didn’t want to kill myself,” she said years after the scandal broke. Today, she is an actor, model and lingerie designer.
In that regard, Dehar, who co-wrote the film, also makes it clear that the idea of the film, the title, is not meant to be pejorative. “It’s a woman who submerges herself in her sexuality like a man. It’s rare to see a woman like Sofia celebrated like that,” Dehar said.
At the same time, from what the trailer suggests, the film also critiques something pervasive: the male gaze. In the trailer, we see Benoît Magimel’s Philippe take an interest in the young, underaged Naima. Which is perhaps also a reflection of Dehar’s own life as an underaged escort. ‘Lolita’-esque themes have always been present in cinema (and a lot of French cinema) where, to use Vladimir Nabokov’s word for it, nymphets have been fetishized.
But Zlotowski’s idea of this critique is one that’s not achieved through shame. “Even in this era of #MeToo, I prefer to use humor and collective thinking as weapons, rather than anger or shame. Sex is a playground I approach with great delight,” she said.
So, what can one expect from ‘Une Fille Facile’? A light film, some gorgeous shots of an off-season Cannes, and some playful sensuality? All that is granted. What will be interesting to see is if the ideas that the filmmaker intends to criticize appear clearly? After all, so many stories, in their light-handedness or heavy-handedness, often fail to drive the message home. Hopefully, ‘Une Fille Facile’ or ‘An Easy Girl’ won’t suffer from the same.
‘Une Fille Facile’ was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the SACD Award for Best French-language Film. It will be available for viewing on Netflix on August 13.