(12/3 – 12/21) THE FILMS OF CATHERINE BREILLAT @MFA

Throughout her long, chilly, challenging career, Catherine Breillat has always made good fodder for cinephile debate. Is she brave or ridiculous? Daring or embarrassing? Iconoclast or rank sensationalist? Now’s a fine time to enter the fray: the MFA is marking Advent with a generous selection from Breillat’s filmography. Begin with DIRTY LIKE AN ANGEL and the queasy humiliations of FAT GIRL, proceed to the all-too-knowing (and gnawing) sexual exhaustion of ROMANCE, then finish up with last year’s well-received ABUSE OF WEAKNESS, a harrowing story (based on Breillat’s own) about an older woman (played by Isabelle Huppert) exploited by a con-artist in the wake of a stroke.