2. Ma Mere (2004)
Poor young Pierre returns home after life at boarding school, his father dies and he learns that his mother is a sex crazed libertine who will do anything to fulfil her carnal desires - including corrupting her own son. Pierre finds his father's pornography and jacks off with it but then urinates on it in a fit of confused sexuality pique. Helene gets her equally depraved friend Rea to take Pierre's virginity in public (!) and then inducts him into an orgy where he meets Hansi, a delightful young girl who becomes his girlfriend. Helene buggers off on her travels again, feeling that even she has crossed the line with her son. Pierre has a grand time with Hansi, but all good things must come to an end and his degenerate mother returns to steal him off Hansi and seduce him herself. While mother and son are having sex, Helene cuts her throat. Upon viewing his mother's dead body, Pierre starts masturbating, screaming 'I don't want to die!'. I really enjoyed Ma Mere because I enjoy all things transgressive and the final sequence in which Pierre shakes hands with the Bishop while his dead mother is on a morgue slab just takes the biscuit and warms the cockles of my perverted little heart. The film is an adaptation of a posthumous novel from one of my transgressive literary heroes - George Bataille - and the film is as depraved as his book. Yes, incest is a yucky subject matter and probably appals most decent people, but it does occur and it is good we have films to investigate this taboo - to bring it out in the open so we can have frank disussions. Isabel Huppert is fantastic as always and is probably the only French actress with the cojones and ability to portray such a difficult role. There is a lot of graphic sex, but it is crucial to the film and at no time appears to be gratuitous. Ultimately, due to the subject matter, this is not going to be everyone's cup of tea but if you like cinema sans frontieres and on the dark side, the film pleases immensely.