text: Smashing film about film-making. Shows the intense and strange relationships that can develop between directors & their actors; the manipulation and mind games; the preening egotism of performers. As in any workplace, sexuality complicates matters, but here to the nth degree as they are filming a sex scene.<br /><br />Absolutely fantastic performances from Gregoire Colin as the fragile, wannabe macho male lead, and - supremely - Anne Parillaud as the director's self-portrait. The image of her laughing & eating a banana at the end, having finally got what she wants out of her puppets, is pure delight.