“Your vision of sexuality is outdated”says Harris Dickinson's character to that of Antonio Banderas in Babygirlin theaters since January 15. Coming from different generations, the two men are in rivalry for the same woman: Romy, played by Nicole Kidman. This powerful CEO, mother of two children, leads a meticulous, seemingly perfect existence. But she becomes sexually frustrated in her marriage and develops an increasingly dangerous relationship with her young intern.
After its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, the erotic film gradually saw its popularity decline, despite some modern resurgences like the saga Fifty Shades of Grayor more recently Deep waters by Adrian Lyne with Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck. But, while female stories are multiplying on the screen, erotic films of a new genre are also appearing.
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In just a few months, two excellent wines have been released on our screens: Emmanuelle by Audrey Diwan, feminist and cerebral reinterpretation of the sulfurous novel, and Babygirl by Halina Reijn, awarded at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. Two projects written and directed by women, which offer a different look at power games and the erotic imagination.
Women's twist
Unlike many films of the genre, Emmanuelle et Babygirl are primarily concerned with female desire. In both films, the heroines are multidimensional women, autonomous, competent, and frustrated in their sexuality – one because she cannot climax, the other because she does not dare to assume her fantasies. . Met in Paris, Halina Reijn believes that“it’s still subversive to make films about female sexuality, even if it shouldn’t be”.
Before launching into directing, this Dutchwoman started her career as an actress… Notably alongside a certain Paul Verhoeven, director of one of the most emblematic erotic thrillers, Basic Instinct. With Babygirlshe wanted to offer a feminist and personal twist to the classics that had inspired her. “When I was young, I was a fan of all these erotic thrillers like 9 ½ weeks et Indecent proposal, explains the filmmaker. I was struggling with my own shameful fantasies, and these dark, taboo films made me feel less alone. But in the end, the woman was always punished or outright killed.”
When she decided to make her own feature film, Halina Reijn promised herself to treat her characters differently. “I wanted to have fun with the clichés of the genre, while allowing my characters to survive (laughs). I also wanted them to all be ambiguous, imperfect, so that there wasn’t one who was right and another who was wrong.”
Generational tensions
On the surface, Babygirl thus takes on a conventional structure. No twist will surprise the audience, from the game of seduction to the acting out to the inevitable complications or even the resolution. But its interest lies in the fine nuances of its characters, and in particular their generational differences.
-Through each protagonist, the film collides different visions of sex, love, power, or even what constitutes good entertainment. The director wanted to explore her own preconceived ideas: “As a 49-year-old dinosaur, I am a pure product of my times. I grew up with very dominant directors, roles where they didn't let me speak, and now I'm faced with all these new ideas about power and sex…”
The film, which refuses to offer simplistic answers, has the intelligence to not place any character in moral or emotional superiority. The loving husband, played by Antonio Banderas, is nonetheless blind to his wife's signals, and is sometimes insistent. Samuel, the young intern, may appear detached, but that doesn't stop him from questioning himself and having his own limits.
As Emmanuelle a few months ago, Babygirl also integrates the notion of consent, an essential issue in modern sexuality. “I am very interested in the younger generations and their vision of the body, sexuality, fantasies… I wanted to show the different visions that we can have of these concepts depending on the age. And, being realistic, a young man today, at least a good man (laughs), can be dominant while asking for the consent of his partner.”
Feminine desire and the power of imagination
What these films offer is also another look – literally – at eroticism. In Emmanuelledesire often comes through words, or a simple exchange of cigarettes. It is expressed through costumes and sets, and is sometimes deployed in scenes where the characters are not physically together. Same in Babygirl. “I love sexuality and eroticism, but for me, it mainly comes through the imagination”analysis Halina Reijn.
The director takes as an example a scene where Samuel orders a glass of milk for Romy in a bar. Sitting at the other end of the room, the latter drinks the glass in one go while staring at her intern. Despite the absence of physical contact between the two characters, the eroticism of the situation is palpable. “I think a lot of women are not necessarily interested in the purely graphic and frontal aspect of sex, but also in the sensuality of the story, which can be just as shocking and provocative, in fact. It’s just a different experience.”
Realistic orgasms
When there is a connection, here again, imagination takes precedence over the explicit. In one of the most memorable sex scenes of Babygirlthe camera remains fixed on Nicole Kidman's face, without us knowing exactly what Samuel is doing to her. The duration of this long sequence shot, which ends with a guttural cry from the actress, is not insignificant. “I'm not a fast person, rigole Halina Reijn. On average, women literally take eighteen minutes to climax, so I wanted to bring that notion of time back into the story.”
The director wanted to create a scene “honest”in which female audiences, more accustomed to cinema orgasms achieved in twenty seconds, would recognize themselves. “I wanted to communicate the difference between a performative orgasm, which we have to please the man and make him feel desired, and an orgasm which goes beyond the fantasy, more animal, where we no longer controls anything.”
Like Audrey Diwan during the release ofEmmanuelleHalina Reijn is aware that some of her aesthetic choices will make viewers uncomfortable, accustomed to a more graphic, more masculine and heteronormative vision of sex on screen. But she welcomes the appearance of the multiplication of new proposals, also citing Queer et Challengers by Luca Guadagnino. “I think erotic films are definitely making a comeback, and I'm very excited about the fact that female stories like The Substance take up more space in the cinema, says the filmmaker, who also says she can't wait to catch up Emmanuelle. We are finally able to have a little more space, but there is still a long way to go.”
