To denounce a problem, you sometimes have to shed a harsh light on reality. This is what Mexican director Rodrigo Prieto did with his short film Likeness.
With the help of his daughter Ximena, who herself suffered from anorexia, and 15-year-old actress Elle Fanning, the filmmaker delivers a disenchanted view of eating disorders. In eight minutes, we enter the world of an anorexic teenager.
The film opens with an evening where anorexic models follow one another, similar to those we see daily in the media.
We then find a young girl (Elle Fanning) in front of a bathroom mirror. In front of her, a deformed face, hers, in a horrific version, that the teenager ends up tearing off.
With these shocking images, the director hopes to mark the minds of teenage girls who find it difficult to take charge of their bodies.
For Prieto and her daughter, a former anorexic, this film served as catharsis. “It was a healing tool for us, and we hope it will be a way for other girls to recognize and say to themselves’ I feel like this, I understand what the heroine is feeling”, explains Rodrigo Prieto. This film is about life in a society where we feel constantly judged and where we judge ourselves “. More than a denunciation, this short film sounds like a message of tolerance towards oneself at a time when new disturbing fashions like the thigh gap encourage teenage girls to starve.
Anorexia nervosa is a severe eating disorder that affects young girls in nine out of ten cases. We lack numbers for quantify this disorder in France, but in the United States it is estimated that anorexia nervosa is the third chronic disease in adolescents after obesity and asthma. It affects 0.48% of 15-19 year olds.
