Abuse of Weakness

Abuse of Weakness

In 2004, the left side of Catherine Breillat’s brain was hit by a huge stroke. This French filmmaker and author, whose works include “Romance,” “Fat Girl” and “Anatomy of Hell,” had to spend five months in the hospital, followed by excruciating physical therapy. But she recovered and three years later was able to direct again with the period piece “The Last Mistress.”

That same year she met up with notorious con man Christophe Rocancourt when she considered casting him opposite Naomi Campbell in a film version of her novel “Bad Love.” That movie was never made, but over the next 18 months, Breillat said, Rocancourt took advantage of her diminished post-stroke capacity by talking her into giving him a series of “loans” totaling more than 800,000 euros. The courts agreed with Breillat; in 2012 Rocancourt went to prison for bilking her.

Most people especially those in positions of prominence would find such a situation an excruciating embarrassment and go to great lengths to keep it under wraps. Breillat is not most people. In 2009 she wrote a book about what happened to her; now, with “Abuse of Weakness,” she offers a lightly fictionalized account on film.

(This isn’t the first time that Breillat has used incidents from her life and work as material; “Sex is Comedy,” for instance, starred Anne Parillaud as a director who has trouble shooting an explicit sex scene inspired by Breillat’s own difficulties filming one for “Fat Girl.) But this look at power, greed, emotional manipulation and simple need is potent stuff even if you don’t know its origin story.

The movie begins with renowned filmmaker Maud Schoenberg (Isabelle Huppert) waking up in the middle of the night and discovering that she has no feeling in her left side, then collapsing on the floor while trying to crawl for help. What follows are a series of gut-wrenching scenes in which the once imperious Maud is subjected to one degrading physical imposition after another over several months until she learns how to walk, talk and even laugh again.

Even after nearly a year of treatment and rehab (“I’ve sunk like the Titanic. But if I ever resurface, I’ll be like an atomic bomb”), Maud’s steeliness remains; eventually she starts planning a new film that will involve a sexualized power struggle between a rich and famous woman and the younger, poorer man with whom she becomes obsessed long past the point when their relationship turns abusive.

At this moment, she wakes up in the middle of the night to see crook Vilko Piran (rapper Kool Shen, a portrait of magnetic insolence) being interviewed on TV about his criminal past he boasts of having swindled his victims out of more than $135 million and is struck by his impenitent attitude.

Against her friends’ advice, she decides to cast him as the lead in her movie and right from the beginning, he starts worming his way into her life in strange ways on his very first visit to her apartment, he literally starts climbing up her bookshelves in a move that can only be described as an animal marking its territory. She falls under his spell quickly and before long, he begins asking her for large loans oh, he has more money than he knows what to do with but those pesky cops won’t let him touch it now which she good-naturedly agrees to lend him.

Before she knows it, she’s given away virtually all of her money and is slowly coming to grips with what she’s done. Or what’s been done to her.

Most viewers watching “Abuse of Weakness” will no doubt shake their heads and wonder how someone as obviously intelligent as Maud (and Breillat herself) could fall for Vilko’s shtick from day one he’s rude, abrasive; the stories he tells to get Maud’s cash are not exactly “House of Games” material (including this humdinger: they co-author a book which requires that she pony up for a substantial “advance”). A lesser film would’ve come up with some pat explanation for why Maud does what she does and left it at that.

But Breillat knows better than most: There is no why here. And so as the movie goes along she tosses out a number of maybes some degree of loneliness in the aftermath of her horror, the thrill that her movie idea is coming true before her eyes, the belief that she can somehow outplay such a player and leaves it to us to figure out how the pieces fell into place. She also wisely presents Maud not just as a hapless victim but as a smart and resourceful (despite her faculties going south) woman who has gotten herself into quite the pickle.

Is there anyone more fitting to portray Maud, the strong yet weak woman, than Isabelle Huppert the strongest French actress who has never worked with Breillat before? She spent her career playing mighty sometimes even manipulative females so it’s no wonder she got picked for this part; but what’s truly amazing about what she does is how thru acting tough on outside now Maud must hide emotional and physical vulnerability that she feels not used to having which makes her compensate for it in all wrong ways as seen in the end when everything crashes down.

There are three scenes here for me: first one opening credits where we see our character having a stroke (it was so painful), then towards last scene Vilko giving expensive Christmas presents his newborn child while realizing he took money from Maud for them and thirdly powerful ending speech where main heroine tries to explain why gave away almost all of her savings known swindler.

Those who expected extreme violent acts or abnormal sexual behavior portrayed through film making by Catherine Breillat might initially feel let down when they watch “Abuse of Weakness” because it lacks these elements shown in most other movies directed by her previously.

However, there can be no doubt that this work still qualifies as one which shocks viewers just like any other produced up to date, whether based on personal experience or not; especially if we take into account two outstanding performances delivered throughout its running time together with several intense scenes included within storyline achievement alone would rank high among best films released thus far during current year.

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