With a complex message, you can't say it's terrible or good. The film will tell about the difficult fate of the girls from the brothel, how they get there not from a better life, and they have nowhere else to go. It’s impossible to appreciate, because the idea is great, but as a film it’s not worth it. .
I think it makes no sense to retell the content of the plot, as previous critics have repeatedly done so, so I hasten to share my impressions. Which is almost gone after watching.
This creation is characterized by the director as a drama, but this very drama is catastrophically lacking in this tape.
Throughout the film, absolutely nothing happens, except for two or three events, which in principle do not affect the final result and do not give nerve or tension to the film.
The ordinary life of courtesans is shown, while the hostess of this institution emphasizes that this is not a brothel, but a house of tolerance. If you hope to see the dirt, real hardships, pain and moral suffering of the main characters, then this picture is clearly not for you. In my opinion, the director approached very superficially to a rather difficult topic, in which it was possible to drip much deeper and pull to the surface everything that sits in the bowels of such institutions and in the souls of those who live there. Bonello managed to stretch his absolutely unremarkable work for two hours without showing what the audience expected.
As a result, a very mediocre and passable film for such an ambiguous topic.
2 out of 10
I heard a lot of good reviews about this film, but I postponed watching everything. So I finally looked. Honestly, I'm a bit discouraged because the expectation was much higher. Still, the French have some amazing ability to write interestingly and soulfully books or make films about fallen women. But this time it probably didn't work out.
There is no plot here in general, we just watch the measured life of a brothel for two hours. Each of the prostitutes here has its own story, each found its own motive to come here to work. Each of them somewhere in the deep subconscious dreams of getting out of this rut, but nobody does anything for this. I would not say that the girls are desperate, that they are fighting for their freedom. No, they lead their measured and rather boring lives. They reminded me of amoebas with powdered noses.
To say that the film revealed some terrible details of this pernicious life, I can not either. Yes, there is a risk of running into a psycho client or catching an infection, especially given the years of which the story is about. Everybody knows that.
What you can score a few points for is the costumes, they're really good, and they're probably authentic. Well, the story of the life of a prostitute Madeleine, who was disfigured by a client many years ago, touched a little. If we just took this story and developed it in more detail, the film could be more interesting.
Broken fates, lack of choice, search for meaning, desire to forget.
Despair bordering on hysteria.
A woman who laughs is the epitome of the whole work of a courtesan. To live under the mask of joy, hiding all the pain and fatigue in yourself.
A prostitute is equated with a criminal man.
The film conveys the atmosphere well. Dresses, scenery, music, images of girls, their emotions - everything is beautiful, everything is on display. Throughout the film, there is a sense of uncertainty and hopelessness.
Bertrand Bonello revels in beauty. He eats it with a spoon and it oozes at him from all over. Bertrand looks for her in everything: in rich interiors, vintage dresses, in the turning of the head, in the perfect nudity of the female body, in dreams, in hallucinations. Having made the place of action a brothel, Bonello does not skimp on unpleasant details: syphilis, sadistic clients, drug addiction, the moral deterioration of the priestesses of love. A kind of Kuprin’s Pit, into which more and more characters fall – women selling the body, and men buying it. But at the same time, the director is far from moralizing. He doesn't judge, he doesn't stir passions, he doesn't pedal conflicts. He simply paints a refined, beautiful belle epoque, examining every detail, every fold of dress, every hair curl, savoring with the characters every glass of champagne and inhaling opium smoke with them. He immerses himself in the film with his head, shoots a kind of beauty in French, where in beautiful salons beautiful ladies depict European geisha (no wonder in one of the scenes courtesan dresses up in a kimono and says a few phrases in Japanese), amusing men not only by body, but manners and conversation.
Bertrand Bonello is obsessed with sex. Call an exorcist, he dreams of them in every movie. Sex, drugs and soul music are the recipe for his cinema. Sex revelled in Yves Saint Laurent, about sex was “Pornographer”, “House of Tolerance” and nothing to say. Bonello’s sex has little to do with eroticism. This is an aesthetic process in which the beast with two backs looks more like a statuette of the Renaissance than a sensual act of love or lustful satisfaction of passion. Courtly conversations, hand panthers, champagne baths, draped silk interiors - all this is more interesting to the director than people and the relationship between them. For The Glass Heart, Werner Herzog is said to have hypnotized the actors in an attempt to recreate the sensation of waking sleep. Bonello is not as radical, but the definite detached-hypnotic effect of his immersion in the world of an early twentieth-century Parisian brothel is felt.
Bertrand Bonello loves retro. Like the hero of Woodyallen's Midnight in Paris, he seeks to escape into the past to sketch dresses with Saint Laurent or to fall apart on the soft pillows of Madame Marie-France's house of tolerance. In his quest to contrast the beauty of the past with the corruption of modernity, Bertrand even goes for a slight emotional twist, building a contrast between the brothel of the 1900s and the night butterflies that now catch customers on the sidelines of busy trails. Although at the same beginning of the twentieth century there were not only elite Parisian establishments, but also the port brothels of Marseille, and, in general, a beautiful era was only for those who have money. As always, though. However, Bonello can be forgiven for this slight momentary bad taste, for it is obvious that he so admires the atmosphere, the entourage, women, hairstyles, costumes, neatly, like Michelangelo, sculpts every turn of the neck, every movement of the hand, so feels the material and so enthusiastically works with it, that easily crushes all awkward metaphors and plot voids.
“House of Tolerance” is a kind of museum exhibit, a series of paintings about the life of representatives of the ancient profession. Every evening, the girls dress up, apply makeup and go out to the salon, where guests are waiting. Life is ringed in an endless circle, the holiday never ends, the eternal carnival of love in luxurious interiors. Even the passions here boil muffled, as if they hide velvet curtains and masks. Samira, Clotilde, Julie, Lea, Madeleine, Pauline – young, beautiful, tired, burnt out birds in a golden cage, choking in a stuffy atmosphere of saturated luxury. At some point, they manage to get out for a picnic, and this is like a breath of clean air, a fleeting respite before a new imprisonment. “House of Tolerance” is the beauty of frozen forms, baroque aesthetics, eye delight for two hours. And yet, after watching it, it is so pleasant to return to your imperfect, but so familiar XXI century.
“House of Tolerance” by director Bertrand Bonello is a mixture of desires, hopelessness, hot kisses and cold hands, all in a closed space, in a small world in which their own rules and laws apply – the main thing is to bring pleasure to the client. This unusual drama turned out to be a very subtle and deep film. Cinema is full of pain, sadness, hopelessness, a small female world of public women.
This is the beginning of the twentieth century and the Paris brothel, which will soon close. In it live prostitutes with the hostess, a solid lady. Morning and day, they sleep, take care of themselves, their bodies, and evenings and nights entertain and serve customers. One of these clients left behind a knife a long scar on the face of a prostitute, resembling a smile, and many now want to see her. We see the lives and activities of these women, who are overwhelmed with much inside, but they do not show it.
The movie is unusual, and it’s not for everyone. For those who love, appreciate and understand French cinema. This drama was nominated for a golden palm branch, which also underlines its importance. This film seems to mesmerize, slowly sinking into its hazy, fragile history. French actresses were ideally cast as prostitutes, and many of them are well remembered, especially the one with a full-face smile. She was sadly and with some deep thinking played by Alice Barnol.
This drama has a taste of both aristocracy and candor, it has a lot of things mixed, but it is safe to say that the movie is sensual with a cold taste of despair. Especially in the film, an unexpected outcome. It was spectacular, unexpected, felt a slight shock. House of Tolerance - French, subtle drama from the director and screenwriter Bertrand Bonello 2010. Cinema is deeper than it seems at first glance, but not everyone can appreciate its depth. Thank you.
P.S. If I ever get out of here, I'll never make love again.
8 out of 10
When you read the description of the “House of Tolerance”, you expect a lot of fascinating things, especially if you primitively expect intimate scenes and all that. In fact, the film is not so colorful and interesting in terms of the profession in question, moments even forget what these women do, in the frame it seems that they lead an ordinary life, doing everyday things.
There is no clear storyline in the film, at least I didn’t find it. All heroines are not expressed in terms of individual characteristics, the character and experiences of the girls are not fully disclosed, they are one whole. It also seems that they all think the same, they have a depressed state and a plight in which they found themselves due to circumstances. The first half of the film takes place in an enclosed space, the gloomy tones of the overloaded brothel setting, sometimes flickering naked bodies, the atmosphere is certainly not so joyful but certainly conveys the style of that era. In comparison with the customers of the brothel, the contrast is great, cheerful and licentious customers look bright spot against the background of women who should please their desires.
Unusual is the soundtrack to the film, a less modern melody against the background of a completely different era, despite the fact that the whole film is no other musical accompaniment. After that, the film leaves some understatement. With such a plot, it was possible to make the film more pronounced, and so it turns out simply a narrative about the life of a female collective in a brothel.
6 out of 10
The film tells us about the fate of one of the brothels of France in the early twentieth century. First, as a small introduction, the personal drama of one of the muddles is shown. This story goes along with the main plot, although to be honest, the plot is very blurry. In fact, we are shown the history of the house rather than its inhabitants. They are certainly affected during the film, but very superficially. Immersed with melancholy and fatigue, faces with a missing look convey the true atmosphere of a brothel that lurks behind a curtain of endless flirtation, laughter and greedy glances soaked in smoke and champagne.
Of course, if you read the description, then there it is written “The beginning of the twentieth century”. Paris brothel, living out the last days, and so it turns out that everything that we are shown the whole film can be called one word – home. Therefore, there are no special actions and dynamics in the film, we are shown his life, because of this personally I was already bored after an hour to watch it, because I just lived the weekdays of prostitutes together, I even felt tired after watching. That’s why I think the story of a laughing woman was added to it, she diluted all this protracted routine, just as she eventually diluted their collective.
My opinion of the film is too long and for me this house did not look like an elite one, if only because the ladies of which could be called elite 2 or 3 (I mean both appearance and figure), only if in those days fat ladies in stupid facial expressions and their lack of sexually transmitted diseases made them elite. That's my personal view, I haven't had any aesthetic pleasure, especially with the arrival of their new colleague. There were beautiful moments with a panther, the eyes of a Jewish woman, the interior and costumes were on top.
I warn you, the film is quite melancholy and dreary, and oddly enough the bed scenes in it are melancholic too, there was no passion in any of them, so sad their work.
5 out of 10
The film, despite the abundance of naked bodies and erotic scenes, is quite serious. The film is about the pain hidden behind the masks of fun, about the fate of unhappy women, for whom there is no other way but to be prostitutes. Each of them hopes for something, each has its own story behind them, but they all have one thing in common - fear of the future, because when the brothel is closed, what will become of them?
From an artistic point of view, everything is made very beautifully – costumes, interior – everything is written down to the slightest detail, so that the film can be watched at least for the sake of this beauty. The beauty of the female body, of course.
The downside is a sluggish story. Everything is too slow and slow. There is no clearly constructed composition - there is only a timeline on which certain events are scattered in an arbitrary order.
As for music - progressive rock of the 60s is incredibly well inscribed in the atmosphere of retro, thanks to the song Nights in White Satin (Moody Blues) and creates that amazing melancholy impression.
Al in ol, to view highly recommended
Exhaustive screams shake the draped walls of an elite brothel - bed-bound Madeleine convulses and chokes on her own blood. The crazy artist left only two strokes: two sharp strokes of a razor brush forever changed the appearance of a young courtesan, gave her the eternal smile of an evil caryatid, mocking and tragic at the same time. And with this ugliness Madeleine will not just have to accept, because the career of a whore is usually interrupted only at the edge of the grave. In Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance, the story of a “laughing woman” stands alone, just as it should stand any of the extraordinary stories. And among other things, it’s confusing – everything is like choosing simple fates, those small tragedies of big cities that occur at any time. Someone rushes out, asks for release, others desperately try to become part of the “family”. Destinies broken by the brothel and straightened by it, but never happy, and with each new year more and more worthless. And all this is somewhere at the junction of epochs, against the background of great changes that are not demanded, but are definitely waiting, only whether they will lead to a better life, no one knows, only hopes for the best. But the infection does not choose, the past cannot be erased from memory, and with each new breath, the smell of the burial ground becomes more palpable.
“House of Tolerance” is, of course, a world in miniature – a comparison that comes to mind when reading a synopsis. Bonello could well embark on all the burdens of dirty realism, dip his heroines down the throat in the slime of brothel reality, focus on perversions and lownesses, peeled mattresses and peeled walls. But the speed of free fall here is negligible, and decadence lies not in the scenery, but in the souls of the inhabitants of the house. The graceful screen of well-being closer to the final credits becomes completely transparent - the artificial gloss of the den fades in the mind of the viewer as the whores who lose prestige in a changing world wither one after another. Bonello is somewhat cunning, because he has the artistic power to slow down the decline in an environment where the rise was only an illusion inspired by the rapid spirit of the times. His film is a cutting of everyday scenes, erasing the temporal boundaries of the soundtrack, a kaleidoscope of naked women, amazing in their naturalness, somewhere already empty, somewhere empty, almost never smiling, and sometimes crying in tears. A beautiful pastel canvas, under which worms of vice break out. There's no Paris, it's outside the walls. The universe of whores and their faceless clients has shrunk to an old mansion, but the same rules apply here as in the big world. In a world where there is a place for true hatred and strong friendship, and your own ugliness can be turned into dignity, a highlight, a reward for a generous pervert and just a way to survive.
Long live France! Some might think it's me in connection with the passage of the same-sex marriage law. Honestly, I don’t want to convince anyone... But at this particular moment, my enthusiasm is not for parliamentarians, but for filmmakers. The relatively new French film “L’Apollonide” (House of Tolerance) is a nominee for the Cannes Film Festival 2011.
This film has a purpose that goes far beyond simple human truths. The fact is that in difficult life situations, ordinary humanity usually forgets about them. It all comes down to individual survival.
The film deals with the case of women taken as a social unit - prostitutes. The conclusions are the same as in a similar Russian film in 2006 “Point”. What is decent here is immoral, and what is condemned, if not afraid to look into it, is attractive with its archaic sincerity for modern realities. The creators of the picture brought to me personally the main idea - if true female friendship is possible only in the walls of a brothel - then perhaps each of them is potentially a better spouse than any of the so beloved high society.
Technically, everything is fine. The main trump card of the film is atmosphericity, similar in composition to the best, in my opinion, film narrative about the restriction of human freedom – “Midnight Express” by Alan Parker. The walls of the brothel feel the skin of those naked girls.
The abundance of metaphors will also remain in memory for a long time - what only are the falling petals of white roses or tears of seed or the final white dance - ladies invite ladies.
And the musical accompaniment, which I still soar on the blues wave, showered with compliments.
Summing up, I recommend this movie to all lovers of the art house decorated with a palm branch. Such films serve as a perfect indulgence for those sons and daughters of a free France who pass seemingly controversial laws. Rather, they reveal only the fact that someone somewhere does not understand something and is unlikely to ever be able to understand and accept.
I was hoping the movie was a cross between Honest Courtesan and Day Beauty. I think both are masterpieces in their own way.
I wouldn't call it a movie, just as a pointless and monotonous cut of footage. It would be a film about the daily lives of the inhabitants of this very house of tolerance, if the director did not focus on the drama (a girl with a slit mouth, a girl with syphilis, the unfulfilled hopes of a newly arrived young mute). But not one of the dramatic lines has ever been revealed. The constant flashbacks got on their nerves with their incoherence. Here is an excerpt from the difficult story of Madeleine, who was disfigured by a sick client on the head. Here they chatted at ease, she told about her strange dream, he took her upstairs, tied her up, then she screams in a puddle of blood. And then what? Who came running to her cries, did the men keep going there knowing what had happened in one of the rooms? What happened to the client, where did he go and come back? What was your relationship like before?
Everything. Only there is some action on the screen, it immediately breaks off, and the film passes - in excerpts, boring dialogue, monotonous thrust, diluted nudity. If I were a man, I would never go to this brothel, where all the girls are melancholy, unsociable, boring. No fuse, no playfulness, no flirting. No fun, treats (except drinking), music, interesting communication. Girls drink and smoke every day, and they stay fresh, even at 28. Some of them wear tattoos (in the 19th century, even if you're confused). They shower and bathe in champagne, but in fact the brothel is facing closure due to lack of funds. Everything is sad and sad.
By the end of the movie, I was just squandering. Because it was impossible to watch it anymore. The plot became even more confused, decadent, even surreal.
1 point for costumes, 1 point for atmosphere, 1 for Madeleine (pity the heroine).
3 out of 10
2011. Brothel melancholy: Men have secrets, but no secrets
France. The very beginning of the twentieth century. The focus is on the Paris brothel. It is not an elite Le Chabane, but it is not the cheapest. There is no special intrigue, no scandals and laments of burnt youth, no lovers Romeo and inhibited Juliet. Everyone lives in the same commune.
Kuprin in his “Pit” picked up very accurate words: “Sometimes carefully and for a long time, sometimes with rude haste, choose any woman and know in advance that they will never meet a refusal.” Impatiently pay money forward and on a public bed, not yet cooled from the body of its predecessor, they perform aimlessly the greatest and most beautiful of the world's mysteries - the mystery of the birth of a new life. And women, with indifferent readiness, with monotonous words, with learned professional movements, satisfy, like machines, their desires that immediately after them, on the same night, with the same words, smiles and gestures, receive the third, fourth, tenth man, often already waiting for his turn in the common hall.
Some girls have more difficulties, some have less. One is cut, the other seeks independence, the third is cut. Well, so - about a dozen characters can be typed - in the foreground there is no one to highlight. Good acting. Promising actresses. I would, for example, single out Iliana Zabeth for a small supporting role as aspiring Pauline.
The director chose deliberately pastel tones and a slow pace of storytelling. Sex will be present here, but it will definitely not dominate. And no depravity, no vulgarity. Lust is shown, but it is balanced by scenes of medical examinations and an unexpectedly successful scene of sperm laundering.
At the same time, the film maintains the interest of the viewer throughout the viewing. And the fact that Bertrand Bonello does not go into cinematic aesthetics does not mean anything – the film turned out to be quite beautiful and realistic. What could be more accurate than a girl looking at a crawling bug on the wall, while the customer carries out his order from behind. I also liked the polyscreen exhibitions that reveal in different periods of narration what the inhabitants of the brothel do.
It's an atmospheric film -- a mural. With his slowness and clarity, he seems to be trying to “recreate” a certain fragment of the era: people, moods, desires, expectations. About modernity will recall only the tearful song Lee Moses Bad Girl (1967). The place, of course, is not the most respected, with a punching smell of sperm and champagne.
In general, the topic of brothels is usually of particular interest. And here we are offered a direct report from a vicious place. You disagree? Are you annoyed? Then I can only remind you of the words from Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata: "Brother Trukhachevsky, I remember, when asked whether he visited brothels, said that a decent person would not go where you can get sick, and dirty and nasty, when you can always find a decent woman."
The ending was definitely a success. Accidentally falling leaf of a rose, as the final touch.
"L'apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close" or "Apollonide: Memories of a Closed House"
The frontier of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. France. Closed brothel for accomplished and wealthy men.
The film is not only sadness for the inevitable passing into oblivion of the present with its special way of life, but brothels like Apollonis, one of the symbols of the 19th century. Against the backdrop of changing eras, the director reflects on the heavy proportion of women forced to sell their bodies to customers.
So, for some time, I watch a movie where the central theme is not sexuality, but the experiences and feelings of the heroines who work in a brothel to pay their debts. Everyone has a goal - a free future, but only it is so far and so vague that the heroines no longer have the strength to believe in it.
As various reviewers have repeatedly emphasized, the film can be described as asexual. “Those” scenes are present, of course, and not once, but are present only for the purpose of full reproduction of the life of such institutions. They can and could be completely excluded, since it is not bedtime pleasures that bother the director, but the body trade is too important element in this story.
Of course, it is difficult to understand and describe what you have not seen with your own eyes, heard, experienced on your own skin. However, the essence of the mood is captured by the author very subtly. Anguish and sadness flow through the pale, emaciated faces of Madeleine, Leia, Julie, Clotilde and Samira and others. About each of them we learn, albeit small, but details, and now they cease to be a faceless mass and a little bit reveal to us as individuals. And after all, "Apolonida" is not a cheap diner, but apartments in which it smells clean, warm and pleasant, there are no parasites and the health of the girls is monitored. But it's still a prison, in a way, a golden cage. It is also the outer world in miniature. It's an illusion of freedom. The illusion in which the young girl Pauline believed and voluntarily came to this institution. So we shouldn't be too excited about our freedom either.
As it is usually forbidden to leave the house girls only once they get out for a picnic in the vicinity of the river. This foray is like a breath of air, a short break between the first and second part of an expensive performance. After this walk, on returning to the cramped rooms of the brothel, the whole gravity of their imprisonment is felt even more acutely. Living in isolation from the fast-paced world of the 1900s, girls can only listen to men's talk about building a subway or the sensational case of Alfred Dreyfus. In the meantime, each new day is similar to the previous one: the same faces, the same classes and conversations. But as time passes, the changes will soon affect them. In the meantime, even the time in the brothel is static, which is why the film is perceived by some as a protracted thrust. But this is not a flaw of the film, but the realities of the life of a man locked in 4 walls.
So, the House of Tolerance is a rather high-quality film, beautiful, sensual, at the same time repulsive with its cruelty, but not radically distinguished from a series of other historical films.
6 out of 10
1899, in Europe, the heyday of the "Beautiful Epoch", which, however, is not too felt in the elite Parisian brothel "Apolonida". Events that take place literally do not find reflection in this place, where there is a long-established order and has its own atmosphere. Luxury furnishings, expensive dresses, classical music - all this serves only as a screen for a house of lust and debauchery. And although the girls working in Apollonis watch themselves and know how to conduct high-level conversations, in fact, they are naturally unhappy. Each of them cherishes the dream of getting back to the outside world, although they chose their own vocation, preferring to be a prostitute rather than a seamstress or laundress. So 15-year-old Paulin, not wanting to live an ordinary life, sends to the brothel almost resume, with a recommendation from parents and a self-portrait. And while the hostess of the house of tolerance is thinking about the answer, a tragedy occurs that disrupts the usual course of events, and serves as the starting point of the narrative. A regular client, in a fit of passion, draws an eternal smile on the face of one of the girls with a penknife, turning her from just Madeleine, into a woman who laughs.
A year passes - Pauline is already fully mastered in a new workplace, Madeleine's scars heal, and in the brothel, as well as around the world, an era of change is coming. The 20th century is inexorably coming, society is changing before our eyes, and the services of elite prostitutes are becoming less and less necessary, making their lives even more difficult. However, the demonstration of inner peace and experiences of courtesans are not the essence that the French director Bertrand Bonello wanted to convey to the audience. The life of a brothel is just a signature handwriting, author’s style, designed to become a background for something more global and public. The change of an era, changes in people’s lives, new circumstances and living conditions that inevitably arise at the fateful moment of the clash of centuries – this is the main leitmotif of the House of Tolerance. Bonello confronts his heroines with hopelessness and helplessness, which was felt then, probably every person who feels irreversible changes occurring in society as a whole, in the lives of individual people.
And since cinema, like many other art forms, is often built on extremes that facilitate the understanding and perception of the author's intention by the viewer, the scenery for the film was chosen brothel. After all, by whose example can one better illustrate human weakness in the face of something global and immense like Time itself? Historically, the most vulnerable segment of the population, girls who do not know life, located outside the false and dirty world of the brothel, which has become against their will their family. No other example would be more revealing. Using the girls and Apollonidus as the foundation for the film’s main message, Bonello nevertheless made sure that this foundation was as strong as possible. Atmosphere, costumes, images of girls - all this is worked out to the smallest detail, which did not remain without the attention of film awards - "House of Tolerance" was nominated for "Cesar" in the nominations "Best Costumes" and "Best Director".
Not left without the attention of the director and personal experiences of the heroines, without which, of course, the picture would be incomplete. Passing through the masks, through the mutilated face of Madeleine, a symbol of loss of identity, once again emphasizes the lostness and inability of the heroines of the film to live. Constant resentment and disappointment in girls are replaced by weak hope, only after accidentally thrown by another client hints of salvation. And all this, in order to return to even greater humiliations, and then to ruin, disease and, finally, death, both within the walls of the house and everywhere else.
A movie about a Paris brothel, which will require the viewer perseverance and patience.
In a New Year repertoire adapted for family visits, this film stands alone and looks like a thorn in the eye. Because at least because it takes the viewer not to the extravaganza of a Christmas tale, but to an elite house of tolerance, in the last year of the XIXth century. Time is frozen here. There's longing and longing. There's pineapples in champagne. Here the Gallic spirit smells of perfume, and behind the curtains in the quiet beauty without a client withers... Well, a couple more memories and will have to finally switch to amphibrahium or anapest.
Going outside the brothel, such as breakfast on the country lawn, is as rare as, against all expectations, erotic scenes. Pretty soon it becomes clear that the director is much more concerned with how the girls are dressed, not to what extent they are naked. The award for the director’s arbitrariness with this title of the film was the only “Cesar”, received just for the best costumes. In a film that by definition is supposed to be about sex, this award looks, if not bullying, then at least an oxymoron. Cesar, by the way, turned out to be one of the eight possible.
What else should be noted: having spent four million (including state) euros on a movie shot, in fact, in one house, the French have so far been able to hire only three (besides themselves) countries - in the United States, Portugal and Russia. I don't think they're going anywhere else. That is, they returned to the treasury real pennies, according to my estimates - an octopus of spent funds. It turns out: threw the money to the wind. But so beautifully - on a brothel - taxpayers' money could be thrown out only in this country. Of course, they are very respectable.
So what do we have left over? Aesthetic cinema with a mildly dramatic situation, but with beautiful women. In addition, the directorial irresponsibility, not quite desirable (for most viewers), is that from time to time the almost complete lack of action suddenly explodes with eerie scenes of violence. However, this manner of presentation is characteristic of the Frenchman Bertrand Bonello, who without much stretch can be combined with such masters of screen brutality as Gaspar Noe (“Irreversibility”) and Bruno Dumont (“29 palms”). So that you do not consider me unfounded, be sure to look at Bonello's "Tiresia" (2003).
But it seems that this director is not so much interested in violence in itself, as in the violent manipulation of the body, for which he prefers to look. In this regard, I recall a bearded joke about prices in French brothels. 100 francs to make love, 200 to watch others do it, and 300 to watch those watching. This gives me some reason to call Bonello's style "perverse voyeurism" (I certainly wildly apologise for my French). Of all the well-known directors who have made the art of peeking their profession, Bonello abuses this opportunity to a greater extent, because somehow he does not particularly show interest in sharing his discoveries with the viewer.
Once again, he is completely absorbed by the decadent visuality of beautifully constructed mise-en-scene. However, this does not mean that he completely abandons figurative decisions. The most catchy of them is the use of soul music of the 1960s in the soundtrack, the most defiant - white as lime tears flowing from the eyes of a disfigured prostitute, which can be interpreted only as "sperm crying." Defiant, isn't it? But since this symbol is packaged in the context of a dream, why not?
Kuprin’s Pit is probably the only work of Russian literature that could provide a material close in spirit to the House of Tolerance for film adaptation. But Russian literature still has the wrong knee. For a Russian man without a soul, well, it does not matter: Katyusha Maslova, Sonechka Marmeladova - these are the true personifications of fallen women. In the context of the aesthetic studies of Bonello, they are unlikely to fit. His brothel courtesans are devoid of bright individual characters, they are like a submarine team: long-term cohabitation shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, when all the joys and sorrows are that common, and, most importantly, the vast majority have no desire to leave this unpleasing institution.
Moreover, Bonello has too much coldness to be seriously imbued with the sentimental cruelty of decadence, or, more simply, the charm of vice. Well, then, what is the reason finally (and someone, perhaps, again) to be disappointed in him?
Paris, the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an expensive brothel with a discerning and decent clientele. Beautiful, well-dressed and carelessly dressed girls froze in various poses, periodically moving from one visitor to another. Someone plays a board game, someone plays music or sings, someone goes upstairs to the rooms. The atmosphere is relaxed and relaxed.
In front of the viewer throughout the film there is a series of genre, little-related scenes - Evening in the salon, Desirous Client, Original Client, Morning, Newcomer, Maniac Client, Walk, Bathing, Opium, Medical Examination, Syphilis, Death of a Prostitute - the list can go on and on.
The young emerging twentieth century, somewhere out there, outside the windows, is drowning in the dim enveloping light of a red lantern and seamlessly reminds of itself with the muted voices of visitors discussing vague and incomprehensible topics for girls - the Dreyfus case, the opening of the subway, the resumption of the Olympic Games, Wells' new novel. So through the prism of a brothel, a slice of the era is sneakily demonstrated.
The routine in the “house of tolerance” is simple, clearly painted and in its clarity resembles the charter of a military unit. Even on the evening “exit” in the salon, the girls come out under the voiceover music, something resembling a drum shot. Both clients and girls are viewed remotely, as if through laboratory glass. It's a woman's world, a man here a subject who invades from the outside, he can hurt, or cheer, or redeem and pay in debt, be nice or angry, but he disappears almost as quickly as he came. And again in the frame a series of bright or curtained rooms filled with some girls and their dreams and worries.
The meanings and ideas in the film are either obvious, like a rose bud falling down the petal at the end, or a prostitute with a cut face crying milky tears of sperm, or half-hidden. But they do not want to look, too great a risk to dig up another social or political subtext, which is famous for French cinema.
It is easier to recline in a chair and enjoy a string of paintings passing before you, a sketch of a past era.
At first, I thought, ‘Well, this is just a beautifully made film about another Paris brothel,’ and sat down to watch as I could, for the sake of costumes, eroticism and French. A little later, I felt the scene cease to be just a beautiful picture, but as if pulling you inside. The end of the 19th century, beautiful girls, a once expensive brothel, living out its last days. It seemed to me that all this is like a one-day butterfly and at the same time a huge business that dominates any moral foundations. Girls, every night changing dresses to more lace and open, laughing at a glass of champagne, making love on white sheets, they seem so pretty and carefree. However, in the morning you can see how tired their faces are, bruises or abrasions appear, and pain, and sadness in the eyes becomes visible. Their lives have developed in such a way that it is almost impossible for them to escape from here: eternal debts, no place to return to, the circle closed. They come here very young, if lucky, then immediately to a chic institution, and then they can only slowly descend.
I think all these girls are much older than they really are. This is because of the hard look that sooner or later acquires each of them.
Si nous ne brûlons pas, comment éclairer la nuit?
I liked that the director managed to show not “the story of one brothel”, but the stories of different people. When films of this kind do not focus on one character, the picture literally comes to life and begins to play on contrast. They have similar fates, although different circumstances have led them to this craft, and neither of them knows what will happen when the brothel is closed: for sure they will be scattered in different places and even countries, so they live in the present and learn to appreciate what they have at the moment. They come alive every night and fall into the abyss every morning.
The film is actually claustrophobic. A closed house, from which girls can not step (the scene with a picnic is sharply knocked out of the picture, and you can see how unusual and joyful for girls such an event), all the action takes place literally in several rooms, where every night new intrigues and desires are born, and then bitterness and devastation, and all this must be endured. House of tolerance. That rare case, when, I think, the Russian interpretation of the name hit the point.
Those who know French may be interested in this article http://www.lemonde.fr/cinema/article/2011/09/20/l-apoll... in Le Monde. Everyone else, don’t pass by, watch after the premiere. I can not decide on the impressions, but at least the film does not leave indifferent.
8 out of 10
Love is an illusion, love is a dream. A dream can be paid for, it can be made a commodity. To give a dream of unearthly love and passion, which is not in everyday life, the task of girls of easy behavior, courtesans, prostitutes.
The brothel of the early 19th century, here in the evenings gathers the male elite, or just those who have money. The house itself is a beautiful mansion with many rooms, almost the whole life of the girls takes place in it, during the day they sleep, and at night they work. They live in a kind of golden cage, not knowing life and knowing only its ugly sides, not even trying to change anything. For them everything is decided by Madame, they are her commodity, behind her benevolence and indulgence lies the thirst for profit and love of power.
Giving a dream to men, they involuntarily succumb to its charm, many begin to believe that they are loved and expect to be redeemed and given their dream of freedom and normal life. These girls, for whom making love has become something disgusting, are weak-willed and defenseless, if they lose their vigilance, then sadistic inclinations can wake up in men, which will turn their already shameful life into hopeless darkness.
There are no main characters in this film, each girl just draws one of the possible fates of a prostitute: whether it is the most desirable, the oldest, the newest, sick or injured by the hand that bought her. Their life is like a crazy dream, the narrative is unreal and smooth. In the film two parts, the narrative of the first takes place in a spiral, each time approaching the climax: the tragedy that changed the whole life of the Jew. The second part is already linear, its apogee is the embodiment of the dream of the girl who laughs and the sale of the house. The lantern goes out.
Our days. Now the girls no longer have a golden cage, they wait for their customers by the roads.
This film does not try to cause pity or sympathy, it just tells the story of a brothel and its inhabitants, without embellishment, but without tearing. The tolerance of these girls, accustomed to the blows of fate, is transmitted to the viewer, so that everything that happens seems foregone.
This film is a gloomy elegy about the life of a Parisian brothel. Here rich men languish with champagne and tobacco, while beautiful young women hug and caress them on velvet sofas.
You can draw parallels with the brothel and society of that time, but time is given to us only as a fact, it is not felt during viewing, exactly, as well as the scene, because the film comes out of the house only once. Bertrand Bonello managed to show the whole background of the life of elite prostitutes, and it was done with such professional subtlety that the intricate twists of the plot even somehow interfere with the simple contemplation of the life of the upper world. Music from the middle of the XX century, migrating to the end of the XIX, competently woven into the lifeless atmosphere of a brothel, the scenery of which amazes with luxury. All this is accompanied by good camera work and a melancholy soundtrack from the director himself. A whole galaxy of unknown French actresses appears here in the charming and painful light of courtesans who stopped fighting for their lives, only increasing the already large debts. Each of the actresses is in its place and it is difficult to distinguish the main one among them: each is special, each is remembered with something and attracts with incredible force.
A prostitute has no rights, and Bonello's film brings them closer to their lives, helps them understand their plight and show sympathy. It is extremely difficult to capture their feelings - whether it is sad, sick of such a life, whether they still enjoy it, or pretend to play their part. Their lives have already been bought thousands of times, languishing in this house knowing they will never come out. In fact, they are slaves, living a luxurious life, but paying for it with freedom.
While watching, you get some extremely pleasant aesthetic satisfaction from the leisurely manner of shooting, the grace of the interior in the rooms of the house, loitering in a relaxed state, half-naked prostitutes in chic clothes. The brothel appears here as a network of intricate corridors and rooms, through which beautiful girls walk with sleepy flies, and visitors sit in a rich living room, amusing themselves with champagne, games and conversations. Conversations are conducted for a long time, carelessly, no one is in a hurry to take the girl bought upstairs, everyone is bathed in the weak-willed decline of vice. The twilight of the XIX century has already died out, and a new XX century has begun, which does not bode well. The feeling of impending disaster inevitably increases, and by the end of the film, the tension reaches an extreme limit. The collapse of society broke out, and no one is able to escape from the ship in distress. Everyone's gonna sink, the brothel's gonna close. Prostitution will take to the streets of the world.
L'Apollonide is an aesthetic drama in a postmodern interpretation.
The film-remembrance tells about the heavy share of the workers of the love affairs front in an elite brothel at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. The monotonous action of almost the entire film takes place in a closed space, with a single foray into nature (the heart of the picture), where courtesans with sips of natural air more acutely feel the hopelessness of their present and future. In a beautiful manner, the domestic, life vicissitudes of girls are shown, with their inherent sufferings, diseases and dreams of repaying debts, with a conscious understanding that they will never be returned.
Blurred plot by the author Bertrand Bonello, defined the concept of the era of frivolity, excessive relaxation and decadence of transition time. The lack of explicit erotic scenes, disappointed many viewers, but they were not the main theme of the film, as it may seem at first glance from the title. In this case, the director decided to move away from the straightforwardness of this genre and did not dare to merge his sensual masterpiece into a purulent pit of porn melodramas. Basically, there are light forms of perversions and fetishism (the scene with a champagne bath).
A blend of unprofessional and quite well-known actresses, justifies itself fully. The author does not emphasize any of them, all are equally part of the overall picture, a slice of French society during the twentieth century. Although Bonello unobtrusively distinguishes from the rest, the only one is the “woman who laughs”, deprived of the most intimate, as a result of the inhuman antics of the hotly loved visitor.
A separate moment stands out artistic production - an ensemble of mannered tournaments, elegant corsets, interiors encrusted with gilding and pearl, an atmosphere of ironic detachment, all contributed to obtaining visual pleasure from viewing. Cesar for the best costumes is a worthy and deserved award!
Musically, the "soul" of the 1960s sounds, drawing parallels with the oppressed feelings of former slaves and prisoners of the house of tolerance. In addition, the choice of this sound is due to the shift of times, like the house will close, and the action will move into the modern world, on the street.
P.S. The excess of drawn-out and manneristic scenes did not go to the benefit of the film, the perception turned out to be monotonous. However, the static nature of the plot element played to the advantage, allowing the central ideas of the “End of the Century” to be realized from a visual position.
7 out of 10