Anastasia: Can't you mix a potion to enable me to break the spell?
Vieille mégère: I can't give you stronger powers than those you possess. Can't you see that animals and people succumb to you? You left barefoot, and without mishap wandered throughout the universe. I can't give you more strength than that.
Anastasia wants so badly to have the perfect life of a princess. Her princess wishes warp her sense of self and contort her view of reality. The people around her encourage this view, treating her like a princess at a young age, and filling her with the promise of a princess' life.
Catherine Breillat treats seriously the fairy tale side of Sleeping Beauty, but is wise to the differences between dream and reality, or rather, the differences between our dreams as they exist purely in our dreams, and our dreams as they take shape in our lives.
Like with Bluebeard, Breillat uses the dramatics and structure of a classic tale to explore how clear and solid desires become unreliable and dangerous once human emotions are introduced. She often concentrates on sexual politics; in both Bluebeard and The Sleeping Beauty, Breillat contrasts the motives and goals of a male with the motives and goals of a female in order to depict the spoiling of a female's sexual innocence, and also to depict the female's discovery of inner strength.
The crumbling of her princess fantasies doesn't destroy Anastasia, she's made stronger by having suffered and learned and grown. Her journey to maturity, which is different from the male's, gives her wisdom which he lacks.
Johan: You love me as before?
Anastasia: As before. Except now it's after. You see, I went alone into your world.
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