The most provocative films are not made by filmmakers with controversial agendas, but by those who treat their tabooed stories with complete frankness. Certainly Catherine Breillat is aware of how controversial her films (and public statements) have been received in the past, but with her first new feature in 10 years, she doesn’t just depict deeply taboo relationships with a deft technical hand, but is equally interested in the interpersonal lattices that are threatened by the taboo behavior. It makes the film occasionally upsetting, surprisingly funny, and always compelling.

Last Summer, a remake of May el-Toukhy’s 2019 film Queen of Hearts, centers on Anne (Léa Drucker), a middle-aged lawyer whose unruly, 17-year-old stepson Théo (Samuel Kircher) threatens to unsettle her quiet familial life—especially when the two of them begin an illicit, passionate affair. Breillat has firmly rejected the idea that Anne is a predator or that her relationship with Théo is abusive, happier to show their affair without judgment while still scrutinizing their emotional interiorities. We spoke with the accomplished French director at the 2023 BFI London Film Festival about taboo, emotional honesty, and the conditions that love grows under.

Projektor: Twenty years ago, you explored a similar relationship dynamic between an older woman and a much younger man. Do you think of Brief Crossing and Last Summer as being in conversation with each other?

Catherine Breillat: Brief Crossing was a little bit like a brief encounter; it happens over just 24 hours. But it’s the fact that something very, very brief can mark you for a really long time and have such a profound impact.

You’ve said before that there’s something unclassifiable to the relationship in Last Summer, that it’s not necessarily a predatory or abusive relationship but something different. How did you try to express this unknown quality with the actors?

With [Anne], she gives in. It is the fact that she gives in and wants [Théo]. I also gave an open ending so the viewer can make up their own ending with regards to those unclassifiable tendencies. I want viewers to work [it out]. I like what’s unclassifiable. I don’t like dogmatic ideology of purity in art. It’s not what art is. Ideology of the “good” can turn into fascism very quickly. I like to explore this. I wanted the audience to think emotionally.

I didn’t want “strong men.” For example, you can say that the husband is a coward, but is he really? He’s very human. He actually takes a lot of things upon himself and in a way he’s not such a coward.

More so than in previous works, the idea of family loyalty is close to this film, especially in how Théo is ultimately treated by the family unit. What did you want to explore with that?

We talk about the family cell, for example, when she’s brought back into the family cocoon at Christmas, she’s given a bracelet. There’s this idea that the family cocoon and familial love doesn’t turn into a butterfly—but it’s comfortable. But love in its purest form, it burns your wings. It’s tempting to destroy everything that you have if you’re madly in love. But, in spite of all, she’s also madly in love with the family, her girls and her husband.

Ideology of the ‘good’ can turn into fascism very quickly.

You mentioned the ambiguity of the ending—it’s very different from the Danish film Last Summer is based on, Queen of Hearts.

Compared to the Danish film, [Anne] decided that she was not going to be a predator, and that he was going to be in love with her. And so what you have is, for example in the office scene, it’s exactly the same dialog—you see him come in and say that he wants his father to know the truth, but then he looks at her and you know that he wants her. Therefore, it changes everything.

The editing is precise, acute, and impactful—did you play around with the tension in scenes? Did anything change over the editing process?

I had a great editor [François Quiqueré], I discovered the joy of being next to this editor. Something that transpired, not so much about the tension, when we had all the rushes—we were [still] wondering if this is the teenager’s story or the husband’s story. As we went into the edit, we realized, no, this was Anne’s story. He’s my favorite editor, I’ve never had anyone like him before. There was a light in his eyes when we were there, he worked like he was working a gemstone. I’ve got to give credit to the producer [Saïd Ben Saïd] as well, I had really long sequences, and he let that rhythm go from really slow to very pacy. That was the producer’s eye as well.

With the title, Last Summer, and the bright, golden hues in the color palette, there’s a sense of nostalgia and freedom. Did you want to mix that with the darker tensions in the story?

I wanted a film with light. I wanted to have two teenagers, one next to the other, even if one of the teenagers is 50. I mean, we look like adults, but do we ever become adults?