By Agathe Charpentier and Lise Mahaud
Synopsis – SPOILER ALERT !!
Do not read the blog post if you don’t want to know the story.
Les Chatouilles tells the story of Odette, an eight-year-old child who is fond of dancing and whose life dramatically changes when Gilbert, a friend of her parents, sexually assaults her. She doesn’t speak about it, since Gilbert had made her promise not to say anything. Odette is sexually assaulted several times by her parents’ friend; she suffers from the situation but she is trapped. Odette enters the Paris Conservatory to continue dancing. She thinks she can escape from her abuser, but this is not the case. Odette’s parents have no idea about what is going on.
Years go by, Odette grows up, her aggressor stops abusing her but Odette has to live with these traumatic memories. She takes refuge in dancing but also in drugs. Odette suffers psychologically, her distress is profound. She meets a man who is really interested in her, but she ends up pushing him away. Odette finally begins to talk: first to a psychologist, then to friends. Then she decides to talk to her parents. This revelation is a shock for the father; the mother reacts differently, she minimizes the acts committed by Gilbert on her daughter. We will then learn that she was also sexually abused as a child. Odette is determined and lodges a complaint against Gilbert, who is convicted. Throughout the film, the viewer follows Odette’s sessions with her psychologist and sees her evolution. At the end of the film, Odette goes back to her childhood bedroom, where her life had changed, sees herself again as a little girl and promises never to let herself down again.
Film review:
This film helps to understand the consequences of sexual violence on the personality and the disorders associated with it. We notice that Odette has a series of symptoms that appear after experiencing sexual assault. First, we notice that as she grows up, Odette adopts risky behaviors, characterized by drug and alcohol consumption. This is a defense mechanism that allows her to anesthetize her emotions and to avoid suffering. The danger caused by risky behaviour paralyses the emotions and anxieties of the trauma (Salmona, 2015). Odette’s relationship with others, especially men, is difficult and leads her to reject them.
The film also shows us how difficult it is for victims to talk to their relatives about their aggression. We may wonder why Odette doesn’t explain to her parents what she was going through at the time of the assault. This can be explained by the phenomenon of dissociation, i.e. the victim is disconnected from her emotions. It is a defense mechanism that allows the person to survive, and this mechanism is maintained in the presence of the aggressor (Salmona, 2015). It will be easier for the victim to talk if the abuser is no longer around. Odette didn’t want to talk about this man who was “playing strange games” with her, probably because he was a friend of the family. Fear or shame can also be added to this.
Moreover, the film is also interesting to understand the different reactions of the relatives to the announcement of a sexual assault. On the one hand, the mother tends to minimise the acts, and maintains a certain denial of the situation that makes her suffer and reminds her of her own traumas. Every time Odette talks about what she has suffered, her mother is strongly confronted with her own history and her own suffering, which is not acceptable to her: minimising the situation is a way for her to escape suffering. By contrast, the father is more understanding and can be seen as a supportive figure for Odette.
Finally, this film allows us to show the reparation of the trauma through the expression of the body and especially through dance. It allows Odette to re-appropriate her own body that seemed foreign and dangerous to her. For Odette, dance is probably an easier way to express herself than words, as it allows her to release her feelings and emotions and to repair her trauma.
This film is striking and essential to understand the impact of sexual violence on the identity construction. This is also why we have decided to organise a “ciné-débat” on this movie as part of the “Personalised Pedagogical Project” of the Clinical Psychology Master’s degree.
Words we have learned :
to be trapped : être piégé
to take refuge in : trouver refuge
to push away : rejeter
to lodge a complaint : porter plainte
to let oneself down : se laisser tomber, s’abandonner
anesthetize : anesthésier
supportive figure : une figure de soutien
striking : frappant