Chicken Ranch

I recently purchased the first volume in the Nick Broomfield collection. It is a box set containing his three documentaries focusing around the sex trade. Chicken Ranch was also Broomfield's first feature doco.

I have a lot of admiration for this film, not only because it was his first feature length film but also because of the absence of narration. Those who are familiar with Broomfield's work will know that he overlays his work with a droll, yet hypnotising narration. That doesn't exist in this picture.

What we have as a result is an honest (well somewhat) depiction of what a working girl goes through, both physically and also mentally. There are moments that look like all of the characters are playing up to the camera, but there are also candid moments of truth. One particular girl who loathes men altogether.... one must ask, why follow this line of work if you hate it so much? No one was holding them down!

The most interesting character in this film is the business owner himself (pimp). Here's a guy who portrays himself as a savior and a father figure to these girls. All the while the audience suspects there is more than meets the eye with this dude. He knows exactly when the camera is rolling and how he should conduct himself in front of it. My guess is that he saw this film as an opportunity to advertise.... I don't think he realized it was an honest document of life in a whorehouse.

The finale of Chicken Ranch is hilarious and also gratifying.... as viewers, we all saw it coming..... we were just wondering when it would happen, and Nick Broomfeild proved what an incredible film maker he is by leaving it for the final scene. It leaves the audience smirking, knowing that our uncertainty about the characters was spot on!

I give this film 8 out of 10.

I am a script writer and I am currently writing a theme on prostitution and its characterization. I was so glad I saw this documentary on SBS the other night because it was exactly what I was hoping for. The dialogues are very realistic and after watching this you do get a somewhat good indication of the lives of a 'common' prostitute. It really does depict the contradictions of life and its limitations. So if you do enjoy the study of human interactions and characterizations, this is the film for you. I rate it 8/10

My review was written in 1983 after a Greenwich Village screening.

Filmed last year at a Nevada brothel, "Chicken Ranch" is a tedious, ill-conceived cinema verite exercise made to fill time on British tv, and, as is increasingly the case with UK tube product of late, acquired for theatrical distribution in the U. S. This schlock-doc consists mainly of talking-heads footage of inarticulate prostitutes and is aimed at curiosity seekers interested in taking a peek inside a legalized whorehouse and snickering at the lowlife people on display.

Novelty value of directors Nick Broomfield (who did a nice job last time out with Joan Churchill on doc "Soldier Girls") and Sandi Sissel's project is nil, since the exact same territory was assayed in the mid-1970s in Robert Guralnick's "Mustang: The House that Jack Built", filmed at a more famous Nevada brothel which is briefly alluded to by one of the prosties here. Major difference between the two docs is that Guralnick included nudity, while Broomfield and Sissel's chaste approach makes the goings-on behind closed doors as cryptic as can be.

Slackly edited, "Ranch" makes the pretense of an "invisible camera", observing the prostitutes coming out for the repetitive ritual of selection by geek-esque customers, their chatty personal anecdotes, views of a tough-as-nails manageress barking orders, and comical footage of the pompous owner, whose sentimental Thanksgiving Dinner speech sounds as if it were written by Prof. Irwin Corey.

Since the directors make the basic mistake of assuming the camera's presence will not affect the subject being observed, it is not surprising that much of the doc seems like an inept home movie, with the women engaging in childish horseplay on their off-hours, and pouring out bitter, man-hating banalities during group discussion sessions. Even the "johns" (customers) come off as false, obviously aware they are being photographed except for a group of Japanese tourists who are here callously treated as figures of fun.

Self-congratulatory finale to this ephemeral opus has the owner ordering the filmmakers to surrender their film and stop shooting when he catches them lensing footage of one of the prostitutes angrily packing to leave after she has quit/been fired due to a disagreement with the boss ove payment for services. He threatens to sue, the film ends, but Broomfield and Sissel have their film for exhibition including the disputed sequence. Big deal.

Chicken Ranch (1983)

*** (out of 4)

Directors Nick Broomfield and Sandi Sissel take us to a brothel in Nevada where we meet the owner, the manager, the ladies as well as several clients who visit the location for some fun.

CHICKEN RANCH isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but there's no question that it's highly entertaining and fun to watch. The film has a lot of interesting things going for it but it's basically just a collection of stories that the women tell about various clients. Some of the highlights include the actual interactions between the women and the clients. The women line up, they're selected and then there's the negotiation.

Some of the highlights include a group of Japanese men who come into the brothel but don't know English. Another highlight is a drunk who wants to party for as little money as possible. Another interesting moment happens when one of the women quits and we see a different type of "owner" than what we saw earlier in the picture.

It would be great to see some sort of follow-up on this movie just to see what happened to the women.

I loved the ending, which I will not reveal here.

Well done documentary of letting the subjects tell/live their own story and interact with each other to expand the viewer's awareness of whom they are and what their work is about. Underlying power and control dynamics burst into full view at the end! Although it focuses on the work of "working girls" in a Nevada brothel, it is also reflects human interactions when people are confined in the same space for weeks or months at a time. The opening and occasional shots of the desolate desert just reinforce the dependency of the "confinees" on each other for their emotional needs.

If you prefer a lot of action, this will feel slow to you, but it is just letting the subjects lives unfold at the pace they experience it. Biggest fault is the poor video quality in an age of HD!