Choses Secrètes seems to hail itself as the death of the notion of sexual liberation, in the Marcusean sense of sexual politics as an alternate ‘erotic sense of reality’ at odds with late capitalism. Instead, Brisseau’s film posits the claim that sexuality in no longer viable as a means of subversion and, instead, the perverse has, in fact, been nicely co-opted into liberalism, given a niche where it can play with itself while turning a profit. We, here, have Brisseau defending a very anti-Makavejevian thesis -- at completely odds with the Reichian ideas concerning sexuality on display in WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie -- a thesis rarely presented in film, or elsewhere (especially in France), where sex is made banal, or worse, into a powerful tool for, not against, capitalism. For better or worse, the sheer radicality of such a statement is impressive.
The story concerns two women, Sandrine and Nathalie, who spend a great deal of time using their looks and public displays of affection (or, raw material) to perfect their craft of sexual seduction (or, means of production of capital). When finally confident enough in their skill, they take their game to the corporate world in an attempt to “climb the social ladder”, as Nathalie (at home in a role perfectly suited for Isabelle Huppert) puts it, sleeping their way to the top. The game of sexuality turns out to be as cut-throat as that of the corporate one, where love of another is a great expense, as Christophe, the banking magnate, quickly shows them. The tension between the two women and their sexual conquests, especially once Christophe is introduced, turns the film into an almost comedic tragedy of operatic proportions. Earlier in the film Nathalie described her sexual intentions as strictly personal fulfilment of pleasure but, as she strays from this goal, she sacrifices her power and falls out of the game. What becomes striking, in the third act especially, is the lack of any taboo at this point on the social ladder – there is nothing off-limits or in any way shocking to the wealthy elite, so, at this point, to phrase sexuality as something holding the power to disrupt seems embarrassing outmoded. The femme fatale, here, for the first time, to my knowledge, has lost her privileged position as something glorified. The sexual prowess of the femme fatale is instead shown as an instantiation of an appetite, which, being no different than entrepreneurial ambition, is synonymous with the motivation that drives all capitalistic enterprise: the violent will to control one’s surroundings to achieve an unmediated position.
Brisseau captures this sentiment with a final orgy scene (which puts Eyes Wide Shut to shame in terms of excess) depicting something of a sexual royalty, where sex has become the new economics, but the rules of the game are the same and they all concern a love of power. But perhaps the stakes are higher this time around, for while capitalism has easily made room for different sexualities, it still cannot accommodate different economic alternatives (where the true power of subversion still lies). This needn’t be taken as fatalistic but, instead, as a necessarily provocative alarm for contemporary identity politics in an attempt to wake it from its complacent high opinion of itself as something more than merely excessive individuation, very at home with 21st century liberalism. For better or worse, Choses Secrètes drives this home harder than any film before it.
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