La dérobade

Prostitution is a subject that has been ill-treated in film. Either the subject matter is too shocking for prudish censor boards, or the scripts have foundered in sentimentality and silliness. There is the documentary approach: Godard tried it twice in Vivre Sa vie and Two or three things..., with no great success. There are the romantic-surrealist or burlesque approaches: Belle de jour, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Pretty Baby, Whore, Irma La Douce. These films have their partisans, but they don't satisfy me. The violence and squalor of whoring just aren't brought out and made real. This is a trade that can lead to the death (or incapacitation) of the woman who practices it. Daniel Duval is not a director to stand with Bunuel, Malle, Altman or Godard, but at least he understands the grittiness and desperation of the material he is dealing with.

Miou-Miou won the César for Best Actress for her portrayal of Marie-Mage; it is well deserved. She brings out the desperate clinging to her pimp Gérard (excellently played by Duval), and makes real the symbiotic relations between the two. Gérard, for all his creepiness, is really the best thing she has ever seen.

I first saw this disturbing film at one of our local art galleries that also screened all of the new independent & foreign films that our local multi screen cinemas wouldn't touch with a ten foot projector. The story deals with a young woman under the spell of love with her new boyfriend who has a slimy,scummy undercurrent (read that as a pimp). Over the period of a few short years, she is transformed into a street wise,hardened hooker. We are treated to sequences of her dealing with some of the worst street scum. If it were not for the top drawer performances of it's cast, I would easily pass this off for smarmy soft core porn, but for some reason, Miou Miou seemed to charm her way into my heart (and my sympathy). 'La Derobade' (known in the U.S.as 'Memoirs Of A French Whore')may not be everybody's cup of tea,but the strong of heart will find some relevance in it.

I hope I can say this and stay within IMDb guidelines, but this is not a very nice film, despite its pretensions to Bresson or Fassbinder. It purports to tell a harrowing story from its female protagonist's point of view - a woman prostituted by her boyfriend becomes both a slave and one of the damned in an inescapable man-made hell - but all the time violence on women is fetishised and exploited, while that on men is chastely elided. It is the duty of filmmakers to expose repression and corruption, not collude in it.

A girl, Marie (Miou-Miou) is led into prostitution by her pimp boyfriend, Gerard (Daniel Duval). She must not only give money to him but to the gangsters that explore him as well. Marie, together with a friend, Maloup (Maria Schneider), will try to become independent. They start to work the streets on their own but they will meet physical and sexual violence. They return to the brothels, and Marie goes back to her pimp, but Gerard has his caprices and wants more and more – he's in a spiral downwards and he's leading Marie with him. There's seems to be no escape.

"La Derobade" is a grim film – it shows the streets, the city scum and the violence that is an ever-constant threat to the girls who work the streets. It's a sad life.

The film is based on the memoirs written by Jeanne Cordelier. Miou-Miou is Marie - her acting is nothing short of luminous. And the musical score gives the film a reflexive, melancholic tone.

"La Derobade" is unique in the genre – it is at the same time poetic and realistic. A neglected gem that deserves more recognition.