Sex is Comedy

A filmmaker, played by Anne Parillaud, directs two actors out of whom she is determined to get the most for a very difficult sex scene… « First of all, I wanted to make a film about that mysterious process called filmmaking and what we (wrongly) call directing a film or its actors. You don’t direct a film: you make it. I wanted to make this film because of the proliferation of making-of documentaries which would have us believe that they are revealing the mystery of a shoot—all they show us is the futility of a film, the surface appearances of its making. The heart of it remains a secret. Like the heart of a volcano. It’s the moment of the Ordeal, where everyone is afraid – actor or director — and that’s when a film shoot becomes inviolably in camera. This in camera aspect is the theme of Sex is Comedy. But in addition to the impossible director/actor tandem, it’s also about human relations, about masculine and feminine, about the subtleties of the director / directee relationship: in a way it’s about the power of the weakest. And the emotional confusions that circulate on the set of a movie like free electrons. » Catherine Breillat