House of Pleasures

Anti-Erotica, An Ode to Female Suffering
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...

A beautiful, languid, sad movie
I'm stunned by many of the reviews, so let's be clear about what to expect from this movie.

You won't like this movie if you want:

-Explosions
-Scene composition from music video directors
-Average scene duration under 3 seconds
-Dancing girls from music videos
-Gratuitous sex
-Clever one-liners, like from a James Bond movie
-A happy ending where the hero gets the girl and the villain is thrown into a waterfall (for instance)

What you will get is:

-Lush sets
-Beautiful cinematography
-Slow, delicious scenes
-Eroticism without a hint of voyeurism
-A touching human story about desperation and being victims of the times and circumstance
-Women who are beautiful beyond their physical appearance
-Quietly raw emotions

This is not another French movie that you confuse with others that you've seen just because it's French. Don't miss it.

Beautiful and hard to watch at the same time
I saw a review of this movie last year on TV and it looked interesting, so I watched a Netflix rental of it last night. I have to say it wasn't what I expected - for a film about a bordello it's the least arousing movie imaginable - and yet it's extremely moving, beautifully photographed and designed, and well-acted. I won't say it's uplifting but it's certainly enlightening. The women's experience in, and attitude towards, their profession is presented in great detail. Their feelings towards their customers are mostly negative and one woman states she will never have sex again after leaving the bordello, which is understandable after watching the entire film. The women find affection only among themselves. I found the sequence in which one of the more experienced girls initiates a newcomer to be very interesting.

I'm not sure who I'd recommend this movie to, since I think many people might be put off by the subject matter (much like our friend who posted the one-star...

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