REVIEWS House Of Tolerance REVIEWED BY HOWARD FEINSTEIN


For most of Bertrand Bonello’s House Of Tolerance (L’Apollonide: Souvenirs De La Maison Close) about an old-time French brothel, the old style of making conversation before engaging in “commerce” (sex with clothes on) was still in place in a large but windowless three-story building, arranged verti- cally from the lushness of the first floor through one level of so-so love rooms to the cramped attic with shared beds for the girls at the top; privacy is an unknown concept. Bonello sets his film at the end of the 19th cen-


tury, a transitional time for the sex industry. Broth- els could no longer pay for themselves, so the community of women who lived and worked in them split up, individuals moving to the more soli- tary and dangerous life peddling flesh on the street. The overall feel is claustrophobic, and Bonello


and the Madame do not let the women go outside, at least alone, for fear of being charged with solici- tation. Most of the women were in serious debt to the Madame, so did not have the freedom to move out and possibly attempt to earn money in a differ- ent fashion. As the owner says, “Freedom exists, just not here.” The director has said he wanted to make a film


about prostitution from a historical perspective and from the prostitutes’ point of view. Much of his research he found in the book Daily Life In The Bordellos Of Paris, 1830-1930, by Laure Adler. What is up on the screen is a stuffy prison of a workplace, so architecturally self-conscious that


COMPETITION


Fr. 2011. 125mins Director/screenplay Bertrand Bonello Production companies Les Films du Lendemain, My New Picture, Arte France Cinema International sales Films Distribution, www. filmsdistribution.com Producers Kristina Larsen, Bertrand Bonello Cinematography Josée Deshaies Editor Fabrice Rouaud Music Bertrand Bonello Main cast Noémie Lvovsky, Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adele Haenel, Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth, Xavier Beauvois, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Jacques Nolot


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its use becomes mannered. The overall feel is ener- vation and resignation. Even though the women stick together, it is a community of inertness. Except for a few downplayed dramatic scenes


— one of the women (Lvovsky) has her face sliced by a client, another (Trinca) succumbs to syphi- lis, the youngest girl (Zabeth) escapes — almost no dramatic tension passes through the edifice. Lethargy looms over this particular house of tolerance. Such bleakness in a genre which has known


catfights and general pizzazz will not translate well into profits, except perhaps in some French markets. The film is too uneven in structure and aesthetic to generate much interest from festivals, but might do okay business in ancillary in the US, where The Weinstein Company has the rights.


Bonello attempts token contemporising of his


narrative. Black American soul songs from the 1960s accompany sequences of people working and dancing six decades back. A worse offence is the last scene, just in case we are unaware of how the grand whore houses of the late-19th century shut down, and the women became streetwalkers who, unlike the prostitutes living in the house, shared no solidarity. Possessing static architecture and a cast of low-key actors, the film does not have the energy required to infect even the most vulner- able viewer with its despair or its occasional light- heartedness. The project feels constipated through and through.


SCREEN SCORE ★ CRITICS’ WEEK Las Acacias REVIEWED BYALLAN HUNTER


A tender road movie infused with a subtle sense of loss and loneliness, Las Acacias marks an assured and gently beguiling first feature from writer/direc- tor Pablo Giorgelli. The slow-burning pace and modest nature of the story may not be to all tastes but Giorgelli rewards the viewer with a film whose warm humanity should allow it to connect with a general audience.


Further festival exposure seems assured with the


possibility of some theatrical interest among dis- tributors with a track record of nurturing small, engaging, word-of-mouth international titles like Mid-August Lunch or The Pope’s Toilet. The strength of Las Acacias lies in its simplicity


and acutely observed range of easily recognisable human emotions. Ruben (de Silva) is a truck driver transporting lumber between Asuncion del Para- guay and Buenos Aires. He has agreed to take a pas- senger Jacinta (Duarte) who arrives burdened with bags and a cute, wide-eyed, chubby-cheeked baby Anahi (Mamani) who steals the audience’s heart in


n 16 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival May 17, 2011


Arg-Sp. 2011. 85mins Director Pablo Giorgelli Production companies Airecine, Utopica Cine, Proyecto Experience International sales Urban Distribution International, www. urbandistrib.com Producers Veronica Cura, Ariel Rotter, Alex Zito, Pablo Giorgelli, Eduardo Carneros, Javier Ibarretxe, Esteban Ibarretxe Screenplay Pablo Giorgelli, Salvador Roselli Cinematography Diego Poleri Production designer Yamila Fontan Editor Maria Astrauskas Main cast German de Silva, Hebe Duarte, Nayra Calle Mamani


much the same way as she charms Ruben. Small acts of kindness and stolen glances gradually ease the initial discomfort between a weary Ruben and a wary Jacinta, creating the possibility of a bond that the audience becomes complicit in encouraging to grow. The journey continues, providing little telling


details on the son that the stoical Ruben has not seen in eight years and Jacinta’s circumstances. A scene where the trio sit by a river and are visited by a dog suggests how easily it would be to mistake them for a fond family group. Giorgelli shows a great deal of confidence in his


refusal to overstate the emotional stakes or sweep the story towards unnecessary melodrama. There is a hint of jealousy when Jacinta meets a fellow driver who proves to be a near neighbour from Paraguay. There is also a potent sense of possibilities about


to slip through Ruben’s fingers the nearer they come to Buenos Aires and Jacinta’s cousins. By then we have grown so close to the characters that the chance of them not finding a happy ending is almost unbearable. Unobtrusive camerawork maintains the focus on


the characters and the story while opening out a potentially claustrophobic narrative with fleeting scenes of sunsets and forests, stopovers and border patrols. The carefully nuanced central performances con-


vincingly suggest the blossoming affection between Ruben and Jacinta with the smallest gesture and slightest glance. In its best moments of quiet con- templation and piercing emotion, Las Acacias ulti- mately earns its place in a humanist tradition that stretches from Renoir to Ray and beyond.


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