How to Have Sex and the Cannes films showing sexual assault is still endemic

The #MeToo movement created an ongoing debate in the movie business about what is acceptable sexual behaviour. The initial focus was on the horror stories surrounding, in particular, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Some of his most heinous crimes were alleged to have taken place at the Cannes Film Festival. The general outcry has led to investigations, resignations and arrests across the entertainment industry, and a wholesale recalibration of what was considered appropriate sexual behaviour. But the failure to recognise and repudiate predatory behaviour is still an endemic issue, something that’s explored in several films at this year’s Cannes. These include British director Molly Manning Walker’s How To Have Sex, Zarrar Kahn’s Karachi-set In Flames, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian hybrid documentary Four Daughters, US filmmaker Todd Haynes’s kitsch comedy May December and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses.

At the same time, off-screen, this theme has been brought into sharp focus by the French actress Adèle Haenel. Earlier this month, she announced her retirement from the industry aged just 34, with an open letter to the French TV magazine Télérama, in which she argued that Cannes is part of an environment in the French movie business that protects perpetrators by turning a blind eye to sexual violence. Festival director Thierry Frémaux defended the festival against the Portrait of a Lady on Fire actress’ accusations by arguing that her view was “erroneous”, adding that “she didn’t think that way when she came to the festival as an actress, at least I hope she was not in some sort of mad contradiction”.

On-screen, what’s interesting is how effective these various films have been in showing how a horrifying collective blindness around what constitutes consent runs deep – with predators seemingly blissfully unaware of the traumatic effects of their behaviour, while their victims shrug off the behaviour as part of “normal” life.

Walker’s How to Have Sex follows three girls on holiday in Greece. One of the girls is a virgin, but it’s almost expected by all three that she will go home having slept with a boy. Walker’s expertly crafted movie makes it apparent that the girl is not sure about losing her virginity on a beach to a guy she likes less than her best mate, but rather than stop the sexual encounter, she almost resigns herself to it. While difficult to watch, this encounter plays like the unfortunate behaviour of teenagers – but the next night, when the girl refuses the boy’s advances, he pounces while she is asleep, with her waking up as he is ready to have sex with her; she then resigns herself to it again. The horror comes not just from the action but also from the fact that Walker shows it so matter of factly, as if it is a rite of passage of being a girl coming of age today, a feeling reinforced by the reactions of her friends when she finally tells them.

In Khan’s In Flames, the horror of predatory male behaviour takes on a literal flavour with a shocking twist towards the end. However before then, the men are frightening enough for its young heroine Mariam, who has to navigate men indecently exposing themselves on the streets, and men complaining when she doesn’t add them as a friend on social media, while even a rickshaw driver who helps her get home after an accident blows his chivalry when he turns up back at her home the next morning. Her life in Karachi is shown as being one where she has little agency, as public spaces are dangerous for a girl to be out alone. Add to this her mother’s overly watchful eye on her at home, born of fear for her daughter, and it’s apparent that Mariam’s life is defined by the predatory behaviour surrounding her.

The most harrowing dismissal of predatory behaviour comes in Hania’s docudrama Four Daughters, in which teenage girls accept the advances of their mother’s boyfriend because they know there is no one who will listen to them, especially not their mother, and probably not the authorities in Tunisia and Libya. It’s clearly abuse, and it’s horrifying when one daughter says she accepted the man’s behaviour because “she was so happy to see the light in her mother’s eyes when she was with him”. It’s a terrible story of self-sacrifice and the acceptance of abuse, as the avenues to fight it are so limited.

Meanwhile in Haynes’ May December, Julianne Moore plays a teacher who has been in a 24-year relationship with one of her pupils, who she preyed on when he was 13. The film takes place 24 years later, and despite the teacher having been to jail, the young man continued his relationship with her, marrying and having children with her. Throughout, he fails to see how his wife’s behaviour has been coercive and abusive.

These films raise thorny questions because in none of them does the victim resist the abusive behaviour or make a complaint to the authorities. The predator is able to carry on their life as normal, almost unaware that they are abusers. This is also a feature of Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses. In the film, a teacher dismisses the accusations of a pupil made against him by claiming the girl’s imagination is running wild. This film is intriguing as it shows men complaining that the new world order has made it impossible for them to know what is appropriate or not, when what they really mean is that they don’t like a world where their behaviour can be called out. At no point does Ceylan make us feel that the investigation into what happened will be anything but moot.

In all these cases, there is no avenue for these young protagonists to be protected or fight back. If they don’t scream and shout, consent seems implied, and if they do, it’s hard for them to get justice. Meanwhile, the predators are able to get on with their lives. Watching these films is a harsh reminder that in so many cases, across cultures and social strata, the #MeToo effect remains hardly discernible.

Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world.

If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

And if you liked this story, หนังโป๊นักเรียน sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.