Adapting Ann Van den Broek's incendiary dance piece (the playful title references both the French word for "meat chop" and the scandalous Belle Époque novelist), Mike Figgis challenges stereotypes about female carnality by literally parading them about. What initially seems salacious ultimately proves itself to be rigorously constructed.
The challenge with any dance or theatre piece for me is how to convert it into the language of film and video without it merely being a recording of a live theatre piece... I was totally inspired by what happened between the dancers and myself, because it also illustrated another question I had previously asked myself: would the dancers be able to respond to the camera in an interactive way‾ As a result of this trip to Frankfurt [to make a preliminary sketch], I was convinced that the performance Co(te)lette can be transformed into a great dance film and that this translation adds real value to the original dance performance.