Rape of Love

Yannick Bellon's film opens with Nicole, a nurse in Grenoble. One night she is attacked by four men. The film has no interest in depicting the attack; it is about what comes after. Her fiancé's failure to understand, the indifference of the police, the questions from the prosecutors, the way people look at her, and on top of all of it Nicole's decision to press charges. Bellon puts the woman's own choosing at the centre and follows the process step by step. In the year the film appeared French criminal law did not even contain a definition of rape; that definition arrived with the law of 23 December 1980. The film opened in the middle of that argument and was both highly praised and sharply attacked. Nathalie Nell leads, with a young Daniel Auteuil in the cast.