-catherine Breillat- 1991- - Dirty Like An Angel

The Perversion of the Gaze: Legal Fetishism and the Failure of Redemption in Catherine Breillat’s Dirty Like an Angel (1991)

The film’s title operates as a paradox. “Dirty like an angel” suggests a being whose filth is intrinsic to its celestial nature—a fallen angel, perhaps. But Breillat inverts this: the angel is dirty because of the gaze that wants it pure. The dirt is not in Barbara; it is the projection of Gerard’s own corruption. Dirty Like an Angel -Catherine Breillat- 1991-

Dirty Like an Angel remains a difficult, almost unwatchable film for many, precisely because it offers no catharsis. It is a film about a man who wants to be saved by a woman who was never lost. In the end, Gerard is left alone, not redeemed, not damned, but simply exposed. Breillat’s ultimate cruelty is to deny him even the dignity of tragedy. The Perversion of the Gaze: Legal Fetishism and