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36 Fillette

Play trailer Poster for 36 Fillette Released Jan 6, 1989 1h 28m Drama Romance Play Trailer Watchlist
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88% Tomatometer 8 Reviews 57% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
A 14-year-old (Delphine Zentout) pursues romance with a man (Étienne Chicot) while vacationing with her family in Switzerland.

Critics Reviews

View All (8) Critics Reviews
Kurt Jacobsen Chicago Reader A must-see... Rated: 3/4 May 11, 2022 Full Review Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Its whole delicate existence depends on the performance by Zentout, a 16-year-old in her acting debut. She gives a brave and convincing performance. Rated: 3.5/4 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Fernando F. Croce CinePassion The Jan Brady of the filmmaker's trilogy of puberty-agonizing explorers Apr 19, 2010 Full Review Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com Rated: 3/5 Oct 17, 2007 Full Review Christopher Null Filmcritic.com Rated: 2.5/5 Sep 21, 2006 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Rated: 3/5 Jun 26, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (21) audience reviews
sarfaraz a 36 Fillette (English: Virgin or Junior Size 36) a French Film directed by controversial writer-cum-director Catherine Breillat. Starring Delphine Zentout and Jean-Pierre Léaud (in cameo role). Film became controversial for sexual acts between elderly man and young teenage girl Delphine who was 16 at the time. Lili (Delphine Zentout) is 14 year old voluptuous virgin girl - she is having uncontrollable feelings towards men while having aggressive confrontations with her sibling. She flirts with an elderly playboy at café who brings her home - the two engage in little hanky-panky act. Set designing is typical of Catherine films. Delphine portrays the bawdiness of character she plays - Catherine's strong direction levels the willingness and stubbornness. All over the world many people have been real ignorant to the facts that women have lived under stressful pressure of society while going through sexual awakening. Catherine Breillat came out to beware the society and those concerned to rethink about what goes all around us. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Boring (and overrated) French film about a boring teenager. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Humbert Humbert: Our Hero? The dvd jacket to 36 FILLETTE bills it as "the French Lolita," and while I've never seen Lolita, the only positive thing that I can say about this film is that it's cool to see a female coming of age story, since it's a male dominated story-type. That's where my praise ends, though. 36 FILLETTE is essentially about a girl on a crash course with future emotional problems. She has some psychological complex about sex where she is both fascinated and repulsed by it. The filmmaker seems to think that the best way to show this is to make everything an ambiguous teeter-totter: when an older playboy that she "picks up" (though who picked up to is up for debate) talks about sex, she bristles, but whenever she talks about sex, he bristles. It's just absurd. More absurd is the fact that she is 14. Blah, it's all just a pretty rotten set up and, while I suppose it maybe might possible be read by some small number of people as being about female sexual freedom, it strikes me as exploitative, aimless, and boring. Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Delphine Zentout is incredibly sexy in this average "coming of age" film Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a film that is similar to that of Truffaut's first feature film, [i]The 400 Blows[/i] in that it has a child not knowing who she is and not knowing what to do because what she yearns for because something that she does not think she can handle. The connections to Truffaut are also there because Jean-Pierre Leaud is in the film and gives Lili advice that would have helped Antoine. This is a film that is intensely engaging but difficult to fight for because of the topic of pedophilia. Briellat never backs down from this and because of that the film succeeds, she does not pull punches and puts everything on screen and we must sit back and take notice. Briellat is a director that must not be ignored and a director that must be analyzed in ordered to better understand the film and to better understand the society around us, because she deals so directly with our concepts of femininity and society. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Breillat is able to direct with intimacy and understanding of her characters with an unflinching truth on a difficult subject. A male director would not have been able to bring out the nuances. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Read all reviews
36 Fillette

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Movie Info

Synopsis A 14-year-old (Delphine Zentout) pursues romance with a man (Étienne Chicot) while vacationing with her family in Switzerland.
Director
Catherine Breillat
Producer
Emmanuel Schlumberger, Valérie Seydoux
Screenwriter
Catherine Breillat, Roger Salloch
Production Co
CB Films, French Productions
Genre
Drama, Romance
Original Language
French (France)
Release Date (Theaters)
Jan 6, 1989, Original
Runtime
1h 28m