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L'Araignée de Satin (1984)
Director: Jacques Baratier
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
In synopsis, this sounds like mainstream porn. The setting is Les Fauvettes School for Girls just after WWI, where sternly Teutonic headmistress Caven vies with Jourdan, a morphine addicted, fabric fetishist gym teacher, for the sexual favours of liquid eyed nymphet Scyluna. Meanwhile the chaplain conducts a nude exorcism and for a midnight treat the school repairs en masse to an island in the lake for sandwiches, a sing song and a lesbian orgy. But the credits - Catherine Breillat co-adapting an obscure 1921 play (Les Détraquées by Palau and Thiery) - suggests a more substantial project. And indeed, what is intermittently evoked is a dismal world of cemeteries, snapshots of the dead, unassuagable grief - though why the the goings-on at Les Fauvettes should be the vehicle for this evocation is far from clear, except in the light of Jacques Baratier's determination to be as peculiar as possible.Author: BBa
Cast & crew
Director: Jacques Baratier
Producer: Louis Duchesne
Cast: Ingrid Caven, Catherine Jourdan, Daniel Mesguich, Alexandra Scyluna, Roland Topor, Fanny Bastien, Jacques Baratier full cast
Duration: 83 mins
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