The filmmaker, who has always defied convention and bluntly addressed issues of sexuality and relations between men and women, wanted to be once again subversive by choosing for this return to direct a remake of "Dronningen", a Danish film of 2019, in which she entrusts the main role to Léa Drucker ("Until the Guard", more recently "Close"...).

"Last Summer" also marks the birth of the young actor Samuel Kircher, son of Irène Jacob and Jérôme Kircher. His older brother, Paul Kircher, is one of the revelations of this year in Cannes, for his role in "The Animal Kingdom", after being noticed in "The High School Student" by Christophe Honoré.

In the film, in the running for the Palme d'Or, Léa Drucker plays a lawyer specializing in the protection of minors, confronted with the arrival at home of her husband's son, from a previous union and just a teenager.

(l-r) French director Catherine Breillat, actress Léa Drucker, and actors Samuel Kircher and Olivier Rabourdin on the red carpet for the screening of the film "L'Eté Dernier", on May 25, 2023 at the 76th Cannes © Film Festival LOIC VENANCE / AFP

Between the initially hostile teenager, played by Samuel Kircher, and his mother-in-law, an intense carnal relationship will be formed, under the nose and beard of the father (Olivier Rabourdin) and the girls they have adopted.

As if carried away by the ardour of their embraces, the lovers will take more and more the risk of being discovered.

If the truth comes out, in this extremely bourgeois environment, the lawyer's life risks collapsing. Between lies and manipulation, this woman, in whom the wounds of the past emerge, is ready to do anything to prevent it.

The young boy, meanwhile, is indecipherable: is he unconscious, madly in love, or manipulative, seeking to harm his mother-in-law? There is little mention in the film of her ability to consent, despite her young age and the authority figure represented by the mother-in-law.

The film was eagerly awaited because Catherine Breillat, artist considered sulphurous or even obscene by some, hemiplegic since a stroke, had not shot since "Abuse of weakness" (2013).

Unexpectedly, the question of relations at the borders of control, illegality and immorality, between adult women and young adolescents under their authority, was raised repeatedly in the films of this 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

French director Catherine Breillat (l) and actress Léa Drucker, on the red carpet for the screening of the film "L'Eté Dernier", on May 25, 2023 at the 76th Cannes © Film Festival LOIC VENANCE / AFP

In "Club Zero", by Austrian Jessica Hausner, a dietetic teacher and one of her students form a relationship in a posh middle school.

The line of legality is crossed in "May, December," by Todd Haynes, with Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, about a relationship between a teacher and her 5th grader, the family that was born from this union, and the decades of denial that followed.

© 2023 AFP