L'Apollonide: Os Amores da Casa de Tolerância

I loved this film, I am surprised to see more than one review damning the film for a lack of plot. There is most definitely a plot it's subtle and thoughtful but the characters all have an arc and, for some, very definite resolutions.

The cast are superb, even those with the smallest roles present fully rounded individuals of whom it's possible to infer their lives outside the bounded world presented to us. The relationships between the women of the house both amongst themselves and with their clients are rich and true.

Although full of sex and sexuality nothing is gratuitous or titillating but real and honest. Sometimes good, sometimes dreadful, sometimes funny, sometimes a violation.

This was a film that I would have been happy to watch for another two hours , I didn't want to leave these women behind.

A dozen young prostitutes in a luxury brothel held by a madam, at the twilight of the nineteenth century. We may see women scarcely dressed, men from the Parisian bourgeoisie, champagne in abundance, a black panther, ... within felted lounges. Objects of fascination, fantasies or sometimes the tenderness of their customers, these young prostitutes circulate in a universe that will soon be a memory. One of them will be disfigured by a consumer as perverse as sadistic.

Filmed with a breathtaking mastery of the frame. Moreover, the costumes and sets are top. It's an aesthetic shock. The actresses and actors are excellent, Céline Sallette especially.

A lot of viewers criticize the film as dark, dull, disturbing, etc. In my opinion after watching this, though, I have not yet to watch or read any interviews about this film, I feel like it is the director's intent. It intended you to feel disturbed in the first place. It has the potential to make us feel that something's not right or what was happening to their lives were wrong.

This movie has obviously a deeper meaning behind the hardship of the women, manipulation of the madam, luxury of the men, all in the of the "House of Tolerance". And you, as an audience, needed to watch it for you to know those meanings and see from your own perspective.

This takes place in a Paris brothel just before and just after the start of the 20th century. While there is a lot of nudity and sex, the film is almost always anti-erotic, as it is so clear that the women are less than enthusiastic participants. Interestingly, I found the only moments with any erotic charge were moments between the women themselves, who support each other in what amounts to indentured servitude. Occasionally we feel the heat of human connection between them in a look, a touch, and that is far more sensual than anything they share with their clients, which is often degrading, and occasionally violent.

The film is a look at the trap poor women found themselves in, when being a prostitute was one of the only ways to make your own money, and other professions had just as many drawbacks (one woman speaks of giving up being a washer-woman because her lungs were becoming damaged from breathing ammonia all day). But the irony is, the 'expenses' of being a well kept prostitute (from room and board to perfume) are more than the women can take in, so they inevitably fall deeper and deeper into debt. Like sharecroppers, they soon 'owe their soul to the company store'.

This isn't a naturalistic film in the usual sense. It jumps around in time – something we sometimes only realize because we'll see a moment we'd watched earlier happen a second time, but in this case from a new perspective or in a new context. It's 'slow' by our usual standards, and is less about plot than about captured moments that build to something larger. It also uses anachronistic, modern music to great effect. But for all it's intentional artifice, there is a feeling of an honest sort of hyper-reality here. In the same way a poem can capture the feeling of a sunny day better than a lot of scientific explanation, so too does this poetic film capture a complex and sad world in a way that lets you feel a sense of understanding and empathy more than straight forward naturalism might.

The film-making itself is of a very high order. The cinematography and acting are both first rate, and there is a sequence near the end that combined acting, images and music to give me chills in the rare way sequences by great film-makers can sometimes do. Not every choice works, but this is a bold, challenging and emotional film. It doesn't tell you what to think, it just creates a world, invites you inside and allows you to draw your own conclusions. I suspect I will get even more from it on a second viewing.

Nicely acted and photographed, this could however easily be very depressing - not only in the unvarnished depiction of life in a Paris brothel 100 years ago but in the clear message that things aren't too different today.

Debt, disease and the possibility of shocking violence are ever-present, although conversations among the women about jobs that they have done beforehand (e.g. The "industrial injury" side of being a launderess) suggest that being a prostitute wasn't necessarily the *worst* option available.

Sobering stuff, but the camaraderie looks real and softens the tone somewhat. Recommended.