Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 20 & Sat 28 Jun
Antoine d’Agata / France / 2013 / 75mins
With the eye of a painter and the ear of a poet, director Antoine d’Agata has travelled the globe to turn the testimonies of prostitutes into this aesthetically rich and unflinchingly raw documentary. Their words are overlaid on d’Agata’s strong chiaroscuro images of naked, sometimes broken flesh and d’Agata – a former photographer – turns them almost into still portraits with only the slightest movement to show they’re alive.
Despite the women coming from Scandinavia, Asia, South America and Russia, there’s no cultural contrast in their stories. Instead it’s the unrelenting and bleak uniformity of their lives that stands out. Loss of self and the commodification of the flesh, a hatred of their job but a deep need to be desired and finding oblivion in the pipe or the needle is true for these women no matter where they come from. The artistic choices, particularly the testimonies of the women, give this film a power but they also give it a distance. Unlike a conventional documentary, here we are presented with a story rather than observing and so ultimately we lack the engagement with the women that might otherwise occur.
Showing as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2014