The point of view of shame: re-viewing female desire in Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004)

This article examines the question of woman in contemporary European cinema through an engagement with post-feminist theory and with French film director Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004). What comes through recent work within feminist film criticism is a desire to change the conceptual frameworks that have held 'woman' in place over the last thirty years. However, this article suggests that doing so needs to involve a reconsideration of concepts such as 'desire' and 'gaze', instead of moving beyond them. We need to review the way these concepts have been theorised and consider new ways of doing so, particularly through the work of contemporary film makers.