It’s always the old scandals that we return to, unresolved problems in need of resolution. From the ancient Greek tragedies of Euripides to the high school canon via Racine through the more recent explosion of interest in the plays of Sarah Kane, the figure of Phaedra is cursed by divine intervention to fall in love again and again with her stepson Hippolytus. It’s not incest—a cold comfort—but still a desire that, in the myth, leads to the destruction of both her and her entire family. In each iteration, though, something changes, and each era gets a version of the story to call its own.
This year, the ever-industrious Saïd Ben Saïd has commissioned Catherine Breillat—for the 75-year-old director’s—not to specifically reimagine the story of Phaedra à la her other literary adaptations, but rather to remake May el-Toukhy’s 2019 Danish film in which a successful lawyer has an affair with her adolescent stepson. The intricacies of desire and social taboos are familiar territory for Breillat, and she complicates the story’s ancient dynamics with a film of multi-pronged violations.
