06/05/2024 - French star Emmanuelle Béart revealed she was a victim of incest and made a shocking but eminently respectful documentary with co-director Anastasia Mikova on the taboo topic

In 2023, French star Emmanuelle Béart revealed she was a victim of incest, after teaming up with Ukrainian-born director Anastasia Mikova (Woman [+see also:
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In the film, Béart speaks very little of her own abuse. Instead, she is determined to try and understand by listening to others, specifically four people aged between 11 and 52. At the beginning of the film, we see Norma, the most outspoken of the protagonists, staging a one-woman show that deals with the consequences of being raped by her step-grandfather over ten years. 

Joachim was abused by both of his parents throughout his childhood and, 20 years later, he files suit in court. He has now been waiting for more than two years for them to be questioned, and a judge tells him that, in judicial terms, this is just the beginning, even if his ordeal has been going on for decades. 

The crux of the matter is that, due to the taboo of incest and the culture of silence around it, society and the legal system are not only poorly equipped to handle such cases, but the law in fact favours perpetrators – similarly to what we learned about rape over the past decade. Sarah, the mother of an 11-year-old girl whose father has been abusing her for years, experienced that in a shocking way. The couple was divorced, and when her daughter told her that daddy was touching her, Sarah went to the police. Experts concluded that it was Sarah who suffered from "parental alienation syndrome" and upheld the father's shared custody rights. This is why the French government has established Ciivise, an independent commission whose chair convincingly elaborates on the vicious legal cycle that victims so often find themselves in. The conclusion is that the law and culture are inseparably intertwined. "When I tell people about what happened to me, something just doesn't register," says Béart. It's as though the taboo created an invisible wall around people's perceptions. 

Pascale is the oldest of the group, and she had repressed her memories so thoroughly that she didn't know what was happening to her when, at the age of 35, she started getting sudden panic attacks, phobias and moments of overwhelming sadness. At 50, she started reconstructing her memories and putting her life back together. 

A psychologist specialised in incest explains the mechanism through which the victim sometimes think they are feeling pleasure, which adds another layer of guilt and shame. But it is only physiology: sexual organs are full of nerves, and one can feel something, although it is not pleasure. 

Joachim rarely experiences sadness or joy, and despite having a family, he has felt pleasure only if it also involved pain or danger. Norma has had sex without any sensations, let alone any orgasm, for 12 years. Stunted emotionally, physically and psychologically, they are fighting back against what seems to be the whole world: victims are routinely disbelieved, which makes them close up even more. 

The co-directors, who both often appear on screen, are extremely cautious and respectful, and the heaviness of the topic is offset by an atmosphere of tenderness and compassion. The photography often shifts between close-ups and a birds' eye view, as if to give us both detailed impressions and the big picture. There are snippets of simple, symbolic animation depicting children in tumultuous environments, while the score consists of haunting piano music and suspenseful percussions. 

Such a Resounding Silence was produced by France's Haut et Court.