Catherine Breillat

The Last Mistress (Une Vieille Maitresse)
Running time 104 minutes
Written and directed by Catherine Breillat
Starring Fu’ad Ait Aattou, Asia Argento, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute

Catherine Breillat’s The Last Mistress (Une Vieille Maitresse), from her own screenplay, is based on Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s provocative 19th-century novel, and is her most ambitious undertaking to date in terms of a formal narrative with period costumes and a targeted mainstream audience. Hence, most of the nudity and sexuality are deferred to the film’s climax, in which a penniless and newly married aristocrat discovers that his passion for an old discarded mistress can outlast his supposedly eternally true love for a beautiful, virginal and wealthy heiress of noble lineage.  read more »