House of Tolerance (2011)
(L'Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close))
Country: FR
Technical: col 122m
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Cast: Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole
Synopsis:
Set in 1899-1900, the film charts the lives of the occupants of a high class bordello in Paris, leading up to its closure and centred around the mutilation of one of the girls at the hands of a client.
Review:
With a documentarian's attention to detail, Bonello answers every conceivable question the viewer might have in regard to the conduct of brothels (save the rather crucial one of how the prostitutes avoided unwanted pregnancy). His camera hovers over the figures in his canvas, or positions itself in corridors, sometimes resorting to split screen, sometimes repeating shots and lines of dialogue. Decor, costume, makeup, indeed every aspect of the mise en scène is concerted to give an aesthete's portrait of a vanished world of opulence and licensed sensuality, while at the same time devoid of eroticism and undercut by the girls' rueful cynicism. Music is used, sometimes anachronistically, to provide further commentary, but it is the performances of the actresses that provide the more melancholy notes: drawn to the houses by the illusion of freedom offered by their profession, they became bonded to their Madame by debts and faced a bleak and uncertain future.
(L'Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close))
Country: FR
Technical: col 122m
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Cast: Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole
Synopsis:
Set in 1899-1900, the film charts the lives of the occupants of a high class bordello in Paris, leading up to its closure and centred around the mutilation of one of the girls at the hands of a client.
Review:
With a documentarian's attention to detail, Bonello answers every conceivable question the viewer might have in regard to the conduct of brothels (save the rather crucial one of how the prostitutes avoided unwanted pregnancy). His camera hovers over the figures in his canvas, or positions itself in corridors, sometimes resorting to split screen, sometimes repeating shots and lines of dialogue. Decor, costume, makeup, indeed every aspect of the mise en scène is concerted to give an aesthete's portrait of a vanished world of opulence and licensed sensuality, while at the same time devoid of eroticism and undercut by the girls' rueful cynicism. Music is used, sometimes anachronistically, to provide further commentary, but it is the performances of the actresses that provide the more melancholy notes: drawn to the houses by the illusion of freedom offered by their profession, they became bonded to their Madame by debts and faced a bleak and uncertain future.
(L'Apollonide (Souvenirs de la maison close))
Country: FR
Technical: col 122m
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Cast: Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole
Synopsis:
Set in 1899-1900, the film charts the lives of the occupants of a high class bordello in Paris, leading up to its closure and centred around the mutilation of one of the girls at the hands of a client.
Review:
With a documentarian's attention to detail, Bonello answers every conceivable question the viewer might have in regard to the conduct of brothels (save the rather crucial one of how the prostitutes avoided unwanted pregnancy). His camera hovers over the figures in his canvas, or positions itself in corridors, sometimes resorting to split screen, sometimes repeating shots and lines of dialogue. Decor, costume, makeup, indeed every aspect of the mise en scène is concerted to give an aesthete's portrait of a vanished world of opulence and licensed sensuality, while at the same time devoid of eroticism and undercut by the girls' rueful cynicism. Music is used, sometimes anachronistically, to provide further commentary, but it is the performances of the actresses that provide the more melancholy notes: drawn to the houses by the illusion of freedom offered by their profession, they became bonded to their Madame by debts and faced a bleak and uncertain future.