Une vraie jeune fille

Catherine Breillat has gained, over the years, a reputation as a particularly provocative female writer - director, and she certainly lives up to that description right from this 1976 film, her directorial debut. Although there is nothing really new here thematically, what makes "Une Vraie Jeune Fille" unlike probably any other coming-of-age film up to that time is Breillat's almost microbiological obsession with touchable things and bodily fluids, including flies, eggs, trees, wax, blood, vomit....and others you can imagine. Charlotte Alexandra is voluptuous and sensual in the title role, but after a while the lack of script becomes painfully evident. ** out of 4.