A highly cinematic and atmospheric look at the final days of a turn of the century brothel when much of the Parisian sex trade was confined to grand maisons, populated by elegant madams and vetted clientele and Xavier Beauvois.
To call this film “sexy” is to miss the point. Admittedly there are a number of beauties on display each night in this bordello (and Bonello is not above allowing and even inviting us to gaze at them), but this is a film about the institutional and state-sanctioned exploitation of women. There is most definitely an erotic quality to the women in various states of undress but they are only eroticized when they are alone or with other women; when with men, there’s nothing erotic about this film’s images of sex –which are presented as acts of commerce between privileged aristocrats and the debt-ridden underclass of women who they cruelly exploit on a nightly basis –unless one finds images of the ritual subjugation of women erotic (Susan Sontag, were she alive today, would certainly have much to say on this topic). The interest here is in the individual stories of each sex worker–not one of them enjoys what she does for a living, one even swears she will never have sex again once she leaves the bordello. While the interiors of this bordello are lush and exotic and inspire male fantasies of responsibility-free sensuality, the realities are that these escapist fantasies veil abuse, exploitation, disease and death. – Doug Anderson
Starring Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel.
In French with English subtitles.
Note: Not suitable for children, adult themes, sex and nudity.