Focalizing the Body in Contemporary Women's Writing and Filmmaking in France (review)

Since the early 1990s women in France have conquered the literary and cinematic territories formerly dominated by men, with often controversial works that have been the focus of much interest in recent years. In their brief opening remarks Rye and Tarr make the point that, despite the relative lack of feminist theorizing of the body in France, dominant representations of the body, including feminist ones, have been compellingly challenged in this female-authored production (p. 3). The aim of this collection of nine essays is to explore some of the ways in which French women authors and filmmakers, who may not necessarily regard themselves as feminist, are destabilizing conventional ways of looking at the body and problematizing women's experience. Although the texts analysed in this volume differ, one common thread underlined by the editors is their 'shared engagement with the materiality of the body, often through the use of literary and cinematic techniques which emphasize the fragmented nature of women's bodily experiences, and/or a focus on the haptic' (p. 4). Given the excellence of Rye and Tarr's contributions, I would have welcomed a fuller introduction and theoretical contextualization of the field, since this remarkable volume is the sort of book that I would recommend to my students. Each chapter of Focalizing the Body is devoted alternatively to narrative and film (and photography in the final chapter). Authors and filmmakers discussed include Millet, Despentes, Rozen, Dagoit, Varda, Breillat, Masson, Denis, Amar, Zouari, Bessora, Nobé court, de Van, Angot, Laurens, Dugowson, Veysset, and Rheims. Two excellent introductory essays by Shirley Jordan and Martine Breugnet offer helpful theoretical explorations of the issues at stake in this study of the deconstruction of gendered identities. Jordan's wide-ranging analysis proposes a useful taxonomy of the techniques used in female-authored writing to represent the sexual body and renew perception, and suggests a number of approaches for reading the texts. Breugnet's essay demonstrates how women filmmakers use the disruptive power of the close-up to remap the cinematic and female body.We then move onto individual studies that explore the four broad themes of the (sexual) body, trauma, violence, and abjection in greater and mostly convincing detail. Contributions include the deviant female ethnic body (Susan Ireland), the desiring female gaze (Lisa Downing), testimony and self-expression via the skin (Kathryn Robson), self-mutilation and body-horror (Carrie Tarr) and the body in childbirth (Gill Rye). The two concluding essays shift the debate to the ethics of representing the body with Emma Wilson discussing women filming children, and Michael Worton examining Lumière à mes yeux, Bettina Rheims's textual and photographic exploration of loss and death. Inevitably, individual readers will be disappointed that the work of other authors has not been examined more fully, such as Nothomb or Darrieussecq. Some of the illustrations from films are also of poor quality. However, these are minor points. This is a well-edited, rich, and diverse collection of essays which should prove useful to undergraduates and stimulating to academics.