By Barrett Holman Leak
LA JOLLA, California — When someone is beaten or robbed they are never told it is their imagination or questioned about whether they consented to the beating or the robbery. They are never told that they are simply feeling regret over rough physical play. They are believed and the perpetrator is sought, often captured, often put on trial and prosecuted. But not so with rape. Rape survivors are questioned about their mental health, their ability to tell reality, their veracity and their recollection of events. Their dignity is diminished and they are accused of nefarious motives for reporting a crime. In The Accusation the blurry, dark hinterlands between “he said” and “she said” are vivid in this entry in the San Diego International Jewish Film Festival.
This 2021 French dramatic film by director Yvan Attal (who was born in Israel) is a perfect one for a chilly winter evening. It is a breathtaking, serious film about the shadowy reality that comes into play when a woman accuses a man of rape and he denies it, claiming sexual intercourse was consensual. Everyone outside of the act who is in the lives of the two people involved is caught up in an opaque tragic and shocking land.
The cinematography is grainy, full of shadow and long drawn-out shots. Silence is effectively used. All this adds to the gravitas of the film’s plot and lends to the feeling that there are questions to be answered, and a right and a wrong to be revealed. But it leaves you wondering if these things can happen.
The basic plot centers around a captivating performance from acclaimed actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays a young Jewish woman who accused a young man of rape. We learn that the Farels are an imperfectly perfect power couple that are maritally separated but thriving in their careers : he is a famous television presenter and as we later learn, a misogynist; she is a celebrated feminist writer (and you wonder how they are married to each other). Their seemingly perfect 22-year-old son, Alex, studies at Stanford University in the United States, is accused of raping a young girl from a Jewish family while home on vacation in Paris. The family’s perfect life breaks down as the investigation and trial unfold, the family’s carefully crafted life flies off the rails. The audience is left to wonder, “Is there only ONE truth or is everyone giving a version of it?
Director Attal presents these versions by filming from the point of view of each character. First, the director follows the alleged rapist, Alex, and the victim, Mila, separately, portraying the disparity of their worlds and how they live their lives, on a material and emotional level. Alex and Mila come into contact while he is in Paris because she is the 17-year old daughter of his mother’s Jewish boyfriend (and potentially his younger step-sister). They go on an outing with some of Alex’s wealthy friends from high school. Later, Mila accuses Alex of rape and the matter becomes a courtroom trial drama.
The story is taken from a book that was inspired by the 2015 rape case and trial of Stanford student Brock Turner. Both in the film and in the book the father of the accused male defends the son by claiming it was only “20 minutes of action” and that no harm was done. Both the author in her novel, and Attal in his film, bluntly spotlight the absurdity of such a defense, revealing the deep traumas suffered by rape victims like Mila, while simultaneously showing how Alex’s life is shaken up by Mila’s allegation — he truly believes it to be false because he believes sex with a woman who is drunk is still consensual.
The film also feels rather timely in the aftermath of the French real-life drama that has unfolded, in which a woman revealed that she had shockingly learned that for many years her husband had been drugging her and charging men to have sex with her while she was unconscious.
This is a provocative story that adeptly uses POV, maintains the dignity of everyone involved and solidly places the audience in the intersection of class, sex, truth and consent.
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Barrett Holmes Leak is a freelance writer based in San Diego