View Article{"id":4486,"date":"2023-04-05T15:01:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T13:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=4486"},"modified":"2023-04-05T15:03:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T13:03:20","slug":"le-figaro-2023-02-07","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/le-figaro-2023-02-07\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Figaro, 2023-02-07"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"fig-headline fig-pagination__hidden\">Michel Houellebecq veut faire interdire un film n\u00e9erlandais, qualifi\u00e9 de porno, le mettant en sc\u00e8ne<\/h3>\n<div class=\"fig-wrapper fig-zone-main fig-heading-article\">\n<div class=\"fig-wrapper fig-zone-main fig-content-metas-info\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Le Figaro, 2023 February 7<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lefigaro.fr\/actualite-france\/michel-houellebecq-veut-faire-interdire-un-film-neerlandais-qualifie-de-porno-le-mettant-en-scene-20230207\">Original in French<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>Translation to English<\/h4>\n<p><em>Michel Houellebecq wants to have a Dutch film featuring him banned as porn<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In the trailer for the film, which is due to be released on 11 March, the writer is shown with his shirt off kissing a young woman in bed.<\/p>\n<p>The lawyers of Michel Houellebecq and his wife announced on Tuesday 7 February that they had been instructed to take &#8220;all amicable and contentious steps, both civil and criminal&#8221;, to obtain the banning of the film Kirac 27, described as pornographic and featuring the writer, and of a trailer that they consider defamatory, Le Figaro and AFP have learned.<\/p>\n<p>The trailer for the film, which is due to be released on 11 March and was made by a Dutch collective called Kirac, was released at the end of January. It shows the writer, shirtless, kissing a young woman in bed. In a voice-over, the director, Stefan Ruitenbeek, recounts that Michel Houellebecq had written to him that his honeymoon in Morocco had been cancelled, even though his wife had, according to him, &#8220;spent a month arranging prostitutes in advance&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Consternation and disgust&#8221;<\/em><br \/>\nThe couple &#8220;discovered with dismay and disgust&#8221; that the trailer for Kirac 27 contained &#8220;statements implicating them, serious and untrue, violently undermining their dignity,&#8221; write Mes Ang\u00e9lique B\u00e9r\u00e8s and Ma\u00efa Kantor, who defend the couple, in a statement sent to Le Figaro.<\/p>\n<p>He therefore instructed his lawyers to &#8220;immediately stop these attacks by all means&#8221; by &#8220;withdrawing this trailer from platforms and social networks worldwide&#8221;, and by prohibiting the director and the collective &#8220;any commercial or non-commercial exploitation, in any form whatsoever, of the film (&#8230;) and other images they may have of the Houellebecqs.<\/p>\n<p>According to Ms B\u00e9r\u00e8s, contacted by AFP, &#8220;pre-litigation steps have already been taken with the director and the platforms&#8221; to obtain a ban on the film, particularly if it contains the voice-over remarks in the trailer. In a letter sent to the director, of which Le Figaro and AFP have been informed, Michel Houellebecq refers to &#8220;the explosion of violence&#8221; in the trailer, &#8220;which irreparably damages (his) private life, (his) honour but above all, what is even more serious, (his) wife, devastated by the lies&#8221; spread about her.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michel Houellebecq veut faire interdire un film n\u00e9erlandais, qualifi\u00e9 de porno, le mettant en sc\u00e8ne Le Figaro, 2023 February 7 Original in French Translation to English Michel Houellebecq wants to have a Dutch film featuring him banned as porn In the trailer for the film, which is due to be released on 11 March, the&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/le-figaro-2023-02-07\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4487,"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4486\/revisions\/4487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keepingitrealartcritics.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}