![]() ![]() ![]() Add to this her mother’s overly watchful eye on her at home, born of fear for her daughter, and it's apparent that Mariam's life is defined by the predatory behaviour surrounding her. Her life in Karachi is shown as being one where she has little agency, as public spaces are dangerous for a girl to be out alone. However before then, the men are frightening enough for its young heroine Mariam, who has to navigate men indecently exposing themselves on the streets, and men complaining when she doesn’t add them as a friend on social media, while even a rickshaw driver who helps her get home after an accident blows his chivalry when he turns up back at her home the next morning. In Khan's In Flames, the horror of predatory male behaviour takes on a literal flavour with a shocking twist towards the end. The horror comes not just from the action but also from the fact that Walker shows it so matter of factly, as if it is a rite of passage of being a girl coming of age today, a feeling reinforced by the reactions of her friends when she finally tells them. While difficult to watch, this encounter plays like the unfortunate behaviour of teenagers – but the next night, when the girl refuses the boy’s advances, he pounces while she is asleep, with her waking up as he is ready to have sex with her she then resigns herself to it again. Walker's expertly crafted movie makes it apparent that the girl is not sure about losing her virginity on a beach to a guy she likes less than her best mate, but rather than stop the sexual encounter, she almost resigns herself to it. One of the girls is a virgin, but it's almost expected by all three that she will go home having slept with a boy. Walker's How to Have Sex follows three girls on holiday in Greece. On-screen, what's interesting is how effective these various films have been in showing how a horrifying collective blindness around what constitutes consent runs deep – with predators seemingly blissfully unaware of the traumatic effects of their behaviour, while their victims shrug off the behaviour as part of "normal" life. Earlier this month, she announced her retirement from the industry aged just 34, with an open letter to the French TV magazine Télérama, in which she argued that Cannes is part of an environment in the French movie business that protects perpetrators by turning a blind eye to sexual violence. Festival director Thierry Frémaux defended the festival against the Portrait of a Lady on Fire actress' accusations by arguing that her view was "erroneous", adding that "she didn't think that way when she came to the festival as an actress, at least I hope she was not in some sort of mad contradiction". ![]() – She Said and the films taking on abusive menĪt the same time, off-screen, this theme has been brought into sharp focus by the French actress Adèle Haenel. – Cannes review: The Zone of Interest is 'a masterpiece' – Cannes review: Scorsese's latest is 'too slow' These include British director Molly Manning Walker's How To Have Sex, Zarrar Kahn's Karachi-set In Flames, Kaouther Ben Hania's Tunisian hybrid documentary Four Daughters, US filmmaker Todd Haynes's kitsch comedy May December and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses. The general outcry has led to investigations, resignations and arrests across the entertainment industry, and a wholesale recalibration of what was considered appropriate sexual behaviour. But the failure to recognise and repudiate predatory behaviour is still an endemic issue, something that's explored in several films at this year's Cannes. Some of his most heinous crimes were alleged to have taken place at the Cannes Film Festival. The initial focus was on the horror stories surrounding, in particular, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. The #MeToo movement created an ongoing debate in the movie business about what is acceptable sexual behaviour. ![]()
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