Italian, sybarite, lover of beauty, jaded, intellectual, addicted to work, professional, charismatic. I picture myself shaking these words in a tumbler and throwing them onto the rug to see how they will land.

Asia Argento's influences, whether in music or in film, run the gamut, but only insofar as it is worthy of being called art. She's stuck to her guns, having appeared in films by Gus Van Sant, Sofia Coppola

It wasn’t until 1996 when Parfait Amour, her fifth feature film, was released that critics finally lauded Catherine Breillat. The foundation for her magnum opus seems to have sprung from her first novel, L’Homme Facile, written in the riled voice of a young woman subjugated by a man’s fantasies. In this and other stories, Breillat's theory of the sexes treads along a narrative of defiance and challenge, but does not abnegate sexual taboos--at times, she even accepts them.