8/10
Director: Bertrand Bonello
Screenplay: Bertrand Bonello
Key Cast: Hafisa Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole & Iliana Zabeth
Year: 2011
Runtime: 122 mins
Bertrand Bonello skilfully captures the last days of brothel L’Apollonide in fin-de-siècle Paris and of the girls living and working inside the closed world that is the House of Tolerance.
The opening scene begins with the story of Madeleine (Alice Barnole), who is brutally attacked by a client. He leaves her mutilated with a scar in the shape of a smile stretching up her cheeks. This becomes a key symbol and a central focus of the film, and we return to the events of the evening in flashbacks throughout. The closing scene, equally dramatic, parallels this opening scene and brings together the story of Madeleine.
Played out alongside the tragedy of Madeleine is the death of Julie (Jasmine Trinca) from syphilis and the demise of opium addict Clotilde (Céline Salette). However, much of what lies between the dramatic opening and closing scenes is less energetic. The main body of the film often seems little more than a compilation of events and anecdotes from the girls, which often grate against each other rather than fusing together.
This is part of Bonello’s vision to capture everything from the individual perspective of the prostitutes – of the women themselves. It is an uncommon angle of approach. His idea extends beyond the screenplay, as there are very few shots of males at all. The film alternates between the girls’s happiness and misery, allowing them to disclose their worries alongside their confessions.
House of Tolerance is a film of contrasts. Being shot almost entirely in the brothel house, spaces within the building have extra importance. Downstairs is the workplace of the girls, an elaborate aesthetic – think a house of velvet – that is juxtaposed with the upstairs, where the girls live a very simple lifestyle. Paradoxically, it is upstairs that they at times are able to find companionship in each other, quite unlike their relationships with the clients who seek clandestine pleasures in the rooms below. The men are always portrayed as self-absorbed and lacking in character: “men have secrets, but no mystery,” and thus sympathy for the prostitutes is easily felt.
For a film that is essentially about sex, there is less eroticism than you might expect. Although there is certainly no shortage of bosom, the limited sex scenes are characterised by unusual fetishisms. The clients have the girls act out their oddest fantasies, such as bathing in champagne and talking dirty in Japanese while dressed as a geisha.
The casting is excellent with the mélange of personalities complementing each other extremely well. Their friendships are raw and believable. Iliana Zabeth, as the youngest prostitute Pauline, is particularly likeable and her tender naïveté contrasts with Sallette’s role as the haggard and weary Clotilde. While each girl is unique, they all exhibit characteristics of endurance and compliance, and of course all are incredibly sexy.
As with most period dramas the costumes are among the most captivating aspects of the film; the women’s outfits emulate opulence, lavish corsets and provocative lingerie, while the dandy appearance of the male clients works perfectly too. The work of costume designer Anaïs Romand is very impressive.
More debatable is the choice of music. Bonello’s soundtrack mixes early twentieth century classical pieces with modern 1960’s American soul music, aimed at connecting the lives of the girls with slavery. While this is a veritable parallel, the anachronism is jarring and the film has the potential to create such connections more subtly.
This is not the only respect in which the film is not entirely a period piece. The last shot, which acts as a final comment, underlines the perpetuity of the issues highlighted by Bonello. We see the girls of L’Apollonide standing by a busy road, their corsets replaced with short skirts, as they offer themselves and their sex to a resolute twentieth century world.
While House of Tolerance may not be to everyone’s taste, it leaves you with much to think about and, if nothing else, the haunting images of a once beautiful, now disfigured face.
green ice cream 