Un été comme ça
Directed by Denis Côté
Hosted by Director, Denis Côté, Actress, Larissa Corriveau & Actress, Aude Mathieu.
Official selection
Berlinale Official Competition
Director
Denis Côté
Producer
Sylvain Corbeil, Audrey-Ann Dupuis-Pierre
Writer
Denis Côté
Cast
Larissa Corriveau, Laure Giappiconi, Samir Guesmi, Aude Mathieu, Anne Ratte Polle
contact
Maison 4:3
With his latest film, UN ÉTÉ COMME ÇA, Denis Côté (VIC + FLO SAW A BEAR) explores the links between sex and trauma in an intimate, transgressive drama. Far from the overstimulation of the city, three women—Léonie (Larissa Corriveau), Eugénie (Laure Giappiconi), and Geisha (Aude Mathieu)—are being treated for their “hypersexuality.” In a beautiful cabin by a lake, the women search for healing with the help of a soft-spoken therapist, Octavia (Anne Ratte-Polle) and a by-the-books social worker, Sami (Samir Guesmi). Shot on film and using handheld cameras, Côté's film draws one into a world of pleasure, nightmare, and fantasy—as time seems to collapse and vivid imaginations blur the line between real and unreal.
While superficially similar to dreamy summer fantasies of hypersexualized women sequestered away, a popular sub-genre of erotic cinema, UN ÉTÉ COMME ÇA subverts repressive readings on characters' sexual proclivities. Cut off from everyday life, where they typically use sex to cope with the anxieties and stress of living in a sick world, the women become aimless and open. The intensity and evasiveness of the four central performances complicate any easy or dogmatic connections between desire and pain as they capture the uncertain richness of sensations associated with living in a body inhabiting a broken society. Is it natural to feel sick in a culture overflowing with literal and spiritual sickness? Especially potent in a post-COVID world, UN ÉTÉ COMME ÇA's loneliness and possessive desire captures the rich and conflicting uncertainty of re-connecting life's physical and social aspects. – Justine Smith
Showings
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