Directed by Christophe Honoré • 2004 • France, Portugal, Spain
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Emma de Caunes

Sex, death, and forbidden desires merge in Christophe Honoré’s daring, controversial adaptation of the novel by transgressive eroticist Georges Bataille. Amid the sun-splashed resorts of the Canary Islands, newly widowed mother Hélène (the ever-fearless Isabelle Huppert) initiates her moody teenage son Pierre (Louis Garrel) into her hedonistic world of kinky sex, launching them on an erotic journey that pushes their relationship to the extreme. Honoré surveys the increasingly startling proceedings with a coolly dispassionate gaze that emphasizes not steamy sensuality but the existential dread underlying it all.