Liberté

Albert Serra has developed an oeuvre that takes a certain delight in provocation. Unashamedly radical cinema that simultaneously seeks true beauty around historic and philosophical fault lines, where good and bad become irrelevant terms. After the success of La mort de Louis XIV he goes further than ever with Liberté, based on the controversial play the Catalan filmmaker staged at the Volksbühne in Berlin. This film won the Special Jury Prize from Un Certain Regard in Cannes.

In a picturesquely lit, cricket-infested 18th-century woodland, bewigged, pre-revolutionary French libertines indulge for a night in De Sadean, pansexual games and the associated humiliations. Liberté isn’t looking for satisfaction, let alone pleasure, but the viewer’s efforts are rewarded with a glimpse of the true, naked meaning of freedom.