Responsibility for pleasure

Abstract

Yvan Attal´s film Les choses humaines (2021) has at it´s background the effects of the MeToo movement, and the legal problem of determining sexual abuse in relationships that are apparently consensual. The gender perspective applied to criminal law aims to produce a subversión of basic principles such as equality before the law, presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, distintion between testimony and proof, and the presentation of evidence by the accusing party. The sexual abuse case that the film proposes allows, however, to elude that path. Unlike Akira Kurosawa´s Rashomon, where those involved in a crime give divergent testimonies about the facts, here those involved tell the same facts, only they diverge in the meaning they give to them: while for Alex there was a consensual relationship, for Mila it was rape under threat. But human things aren´t so simple: under the framework of a trial, the film proposes the paradox of a consensual sexual relationship that becomes abuse due to resignification.