In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?



The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.



Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in the spring of 1968 when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, The Dreamers is a story of self-discovery for three students. Left alone while their parents are on holiday, Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with their emotions and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games.



Ooh Papa! Cinema Francais d'Incest presented by Alan Hook and Rachael McConkey.

In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?

The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.

Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

Ma Mere - Based on George Bataille's posthumous and controversial novel: When his father dies, a young man is introduced by his attractive, amoral mother to a world of hedonism and depravity, are there limits to the transgression he will face.

In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?



The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.

Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

I Stand Alone - The butcher (known from Noe's short film Carne) has done some time in jail after beating up the guy who tried to seduce his teenage mentally-handicapped daughter. Now he wants to start a new life. He leaves his daughter in an institution and moves to Lille suburbs with his mistress. She promised him a new butcher shop. She lied. The butcher decides to go back to Paris and find his daughter.

Ooh Papa! Cinema Francaise d'Incest presented by Alan Hook and Rachael McConkey.

Hostel is a double edged sword - a sexy road movie and an absolute gore fest, which will at times have you squirming. To put this movie in the category of road movie may seem surprising, but essentially that’s what it is. It has all the elements required, the protaganists set out with the idea of finding something better. It goes on to almost toy with the idea of identity, with the main protagonist slowing manifesting into what he most detests. Gender features to a great extent for example the women are all portrayed as immoral, as prostitutes or sluts and the men (who are few and far between) seek frivolity on unprecedented levels; they buy women, judge them on their physical merits and seek only to fulfill their own needs. However, none of them deserve the fate that awaits them, and even the innocent are not spared. They are little more than small boys lost in a wood full of predators, and very far from home, yet they too have been predators in their treatment of women earlier on, in this way it could almost be comparable to a contemporary slasher flick.

Behind its apparently bloody-mindedness, it is a deeply intelligent and angry film: graphic, but by no means extreme. Part fairy tale and part nightmare, the film proposes moral questions such as "What could you let yourself do if you did not have to account for your actions?" "What is a human life worth?" It is with musings such as this that we can see the direct influence of Takashi Miike, Eli Roth has wrapped biting social commentary in a bloody shroud, and it works. By no means is this the most profound or intellectual film in the season, narratively it leaves a lot to be desired, but the torture scenes are realistic and horrible. You cannot help but feel the pain of the victims, and this is where the film truly excels. For a few moments of nightmarish intimacy, you are made to empathize deeply with a stranger. Much like the closing scenes of Audition, you care about the victims and want their pain to simply STOP.

It is here that the use of the road really becomes apparent, the viewer feels as though they have shared the journey and associate themselves with the experiences of the protagonists. This realisation is, for me, the scary part!

In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?



The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.

Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

I Stand Alone - The butcher (known from Noe's short film Carne) has done some time in jail after beating up the guy who tried to seduce his teenage mentally-handicapped daughter. Now he wants to start a new life. He leaves his daughter in an institution and moves to Lille suburbs with his mistress. She promised him a new butcher shop. She lied. The butcher decides to go back to Paris and find his daughter.

In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?

The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.

Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

Ma Mere - Based on George Bataille's posthumous and controversial novel: When his father dies, a young man is introduced by his attractive, amoral mother to a world of hedonism and depravity, are there limits to the transgression he will face.

In the 1920s, the French actor, director and poet Antonin Artaud elaborated his vision of the Theatre of Cruelty, a form of spectacle designed to rattle audiences' sensibilities with a force he compared to that of the bubonic plague: "I propose a theatre whose violent physical images pulverize, mesmerize the audience's sensibilities, caught in the drama as if in a vortex of higher forces." Substitute the word "theatre" for "cinema", and you have a fair description of a prominent strain of contemporary French cinema, one which has been dubbed the "New French Extreme".

Increasingly, this new strain of French cinema has been dominated by graphic sexuality, violence and a sense of social apocalypse. Among the defining images of the past decade, we have seen the embittered butcher of Gaspar Noé's Seul Contre Tous (I Stand Alone, 1998). Graphic sexuality is one thing (and all these films deal with that in great detail), but the use of incest is indeed another. Why is incest, a social and ethical taboo, used so provocatively in contemporary French cinema?



The hypothesis of new French extreme is to attempt to go beyond accepted limits. As Catherine Breillat (director of Baise-Moi and Anatomy of Hell) says: "It's about watching what is unwatchable...There are laws against obscenity, but I wanted to know what it was about from the point of view of an artist - not from the point of view of the law which forbids you to be an artist. [It’s about] trying to present people with something they can't bear, so as to make them see how miserable it is to be able to bear so little. “French cinema is terribly bourgeois," complains Breillat. "You're either an artist or a conformist - if you're conformist, you show society conforming to the way it likes to see itself. If you're an artist, you show a society that's much more transgressive."

It is no less influential 20th-century figure is Georges Bataille, philosopher and writer of a deliriously sordid brand of literary pornography who has paved the way for this new imbroglio of incest in French cinema. For Bataille, transgression is all, a quasi-religious yearning towards transcendence, in which abjection and exaltation go hand in hand. Perhaps it takes a lapsed Catholic to get the most out of Bataille, but his posthumously published Ma Mère has been adapted for the screen by Christophe Honoré, and was a surprise hit. This exploration of debauchery and the incest taboo stars no less an eminence than Isabelle Huppert, which testifies to the seriousness with which Bataille is taken in France.



Arguably however, the idea of incest in cinema is being broached now; after all other sexual taboos have been explored. Incest is in fact known as ‘the final taboo’. Bertolucci’s film Last Tango in Paris, was in 1972, a controversial move, and was the first mainstream film to feature an act of sodomy. Indeed, Bertolucci, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider (who played the lead roles), where indicted for making the film under the term "utilitarian pornography". Interestingly, Catherine Breillat acted in this film, and then went on to become the “Queen of French Extreme”. Bertolucci, then, is the forefather of this type of cinema, he was a contemporary of Godard and Truffant, all of whom influence New French Extreme heavily. Bertolucci then, has now come full circle, with his film Les Innocents (The Dreamers), which features graphic sex, violence and a sense of social apocalypse (all ingredients of the new French extreme).

Set against the turbulent political backdrop of France in the spring of 1968 when the voice of youth was reverberating around Europe, The Dreamers is a story of self-discovery for three students. Left alone while their parents are on holiday, Isabelle (Eva Green) and her brother Theo (Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt), a young American student, to stay at their apartment. Here they make their own rules as they experiment with their emotions and sexuality while playing a series of increasingly demanding mind games.

Ooh Papa! Cinema Francais d'Incest presented by Alan Hook and Rachael McConkey.