Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure. Both find positions in the office of a large bank, where bored, under-stimulated, prey are easy pickings. After making their way though several layers of executives at the bank, with destructive, and lucrative, results, they approach Christophe, scion to the bank director.
What they don’t know is that Christophe is a manipulative voyeur, whose last two lovers set themselves on fire when he rejected them. A connoisseur of high-class orgies, Christophe is only interested in new talent to satisfy the appetites of all whom he controls. In Christophe, the girls have found an opponent who knows all their wiles, and will challenge their simple under-class friendship with levels of jealousy and ecstasy that they have never experienced before. Will they survive?
Secret Things (French: Choses Secrètes) is a 2002 French erotic thriller film directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau, starring Coralie Revel and Sabrina Seyvecou. The film is sometimes associated with the New French Extremity. Cahiers du Cinema named Secret Things, jointly along with Ten by director Abbas Kiarostami, as the best film of 2002. The film was awarded the ‘French Cineaste of the Year’ title at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, the director Jean-Claude Brisseau was found guilty of sexually harassing two actresses between 1999 and 2001 during auditions for the film.
About the Story
Two Parisian girls, Nathalie (Revel), a stripper at a bar, and Sandrine (Seyvecou), a bartender, conspire to climb the social ladder of Paris when they start living together. The club owner gives Sandrine an ultimatum to have sex with a paying client. Nathalie, after finishing her shift, defends and dissuades Sandrine from accepting the offer, and both girls are fired. Sandrine, after falling behind on her rent, is sure that the landlord will kick her out especially since she is unemployed, but Nathalie offers to share her apartment with Sandrine for a while.
The girls decide to climb the corporate ladder by exploiting their sex appeal and get jobs as secretaries in a banking corporation. Sandrine is sent to HQ, and Nathalie is sent to Human Resource Department. They aim to seduce their bosses and get promoted, which Sandrine accomplishes with co-founder Monsieur Delacroix after becoming his secretary, but much ambiguity surrounds Nathalie.
Christophe, the CEO’s son and future heir to the banking corporation, is very handsome and the final target for both girls to seduce, but his reputation is devastating. Having gone through many women, Christophe is ruthless and seemingly emotionless yet has the capability to seduce any woman and make her fall madly in love with him. This resulted in previous romances ending with their suicide. Yet Sandrine still is determined to conquer him even after receiving a warning from Nathalie.
Over time, Sandrine, through absenteeism and reduced attention towards Delacroix, convinces him to have Nathalie transferred to his office as an assistant secretary to Sandrine since she feels overworked. The result is a threesome that evening in the office that Christophe and his sister interrupt. After being covertly disciplined, Delacroix will retain his job title and continue to work for the company, but, officially, on paper (to which only Christophe has access) he has been fired.
After the situation, Christophe takes Nathalie and Sandrine to a private restaurant, where it is revealed that Nathalie has been Christophe’s secret lover while the girls had been working at the bank. After flaunting his wealth, Christophe reveals his plan: to marry Sandrine with a formal wedding to convince his dying father that he is a reformed man and thus will gain complete control over the corporation. Sandrine will divorce after with a healthy settlement. Nathalie, enraged by the situation, does not resist in hope that Christophe loves her, even obeying his command for her and Sandrine to go to the toilets and start having sex before awaiting Christophe to turn it into a threesome.
Secret Things – Choses Secrètes (2004)
Directed by: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Starring: Coralie Revel, Sabrina Seyvecou, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville, Viviane Théophildès, Blandine Bury, Dorothée Picard, María Luisa García, Patricia Candido Trinca, Lydia Chopart
Screenplay by: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Production Design by: María Luisa García
Cinematography by: Wilfrid Sempé
Film Editing by: María Luisa García
Costume Design by: María Luisa García, Monique Proville
Music by: Julien Civange
Distributed by: Tartan Films
Release Date: January 30, 2004
Visits: 398
