Fat Girl has energy hidden all over its body. It sort of thrives. It has energy tickling Anais's legs on the beach (tickling takes restraint) while we look at her face, and she sings the same masochistic lyrics over and over. Time doesn't pass like in a Pialat movie--it kind of obsesses. That Anais could keep chanting such forceful lyrics while experiencing the banality of discomfort (wetness, coldness, too much time passing) suggests her defeating depth of thought: she obsesses, she can stop time, though she's having a miserable one.
The mother's driving is bad, but also kind of insane. Psychically, she's squirming. In the second or so driving shot, she looks intent on lovelessly destroying something, but she's barely touching the gas. (Opening move in a hilarious highway performance: the impatient blinker of the driver behind her.) What kind of person hates their daughter without speeding?
This world is invasive, intrusive (as Breillat puts it); desires, bodies, emotions, insights orbit and molest one another. As Breillat says, the sisters share a soul, which they stretch and rip unless they're caressing and mending it. The caustic affinity at the end, between plan and act, is perhaps related to the elimination of intersubjectivity. Anais's sentimentality (again, following Breillat from the interview on Criterion's DVD) is satisfied in terrific loneliness.
p.s. I also liked the interviews quite a bit. The film and interviews are beyond my ability to address; rich, strong stuff.
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