REVIEWS
PANORAMA SPECIAL
Fr-Pol-Ger. 2011. 98mins Director Malgorzata Szumowska Production company Slot Machine Co-producers Zentropa International Poland, Zentropa International Köln, Canal Plus Poland, ZDF, Shot Szumowski, Liberador Produtions International sales Memento Films International, www.
memento-films.com Producer Marianne Slot Executive producer Olivier Guerbois Screenplay Tine Byrckel, Malgorzata Szumowska Cinematography Michal Englert Editors Francoise Tourmen, Jacek Drosio Production designer Pauline Bourdon Main cast Juliette Binoche, Anais Demoustier, Joanna Kulig, Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, Francois Civil, Pablo Beugnet
Elles REVIEWED BY LEE MARSHALL
Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska packages an earnest feminist message in an arty, glossy, sexually explicit package in her first mid-budget international film. Elles stars Juliette Bino- che as a journalist from the upper echelons of Parisian society whose outwardly rich yet inwardly trapped existence as a wife and mother is put into stark perspective when she begins to interview two young student girls from less privileged back- grounds who are turning tricks to finance their studies. It is obvious right from the start that sisterly bonding is on
the agenda, and the film makes little attempt, either, to disguise its cut-out-and-keep argument: that women can prostitute themselves for men in all sorts of different ways. Still, the Binoche angle, the slickness of the package and the
gentle buzz of controversy generated by the tastefully graphic sex will reap an audience for this multi-partner co-production in several territories. And there are compensations in a film that lets its message dominate its drama: the two part-time hookers are well-written and well-acted, and there is some intelligently entertaining questioning of the journalist’s right to intrude in other people’s lives in the name of truth. Binoche plays Anne, a journalist with French Elle magazine,
who alternates art and fashion features with more hard-hitting investigations — such as the “student prostitute” piece on which she is currently working. She lives in an upscale designer apartment in Paris with her businessman husband (de Lenc- quesaing) and two young sons. Played out over 24 hours between two family breakfasts, the
film follows Anne as she interviews two girls for her feature. One, Lola aka Charlotte (Demoustier), is a French girl from a working-class family; the other, Alicja (Kulig) is a Polish girl who, it turns out, is in France studying economics. As Anne questions the girls, we see flashbacks of their lives, at home, in the university, but mostly with the older men they service. Another message surfaces here: that we should not assume,
as Anne does initially, that these girls are exploited, or not in control of their lives; Lola/Charlotte is a fresh-faced rose who seems at first to have an uncomplicated enjoyment of sex, while Alicja is a smart and pugnacious party girl. At the same time though, the script seems scared to take this
line too far: a scene in which Lola/Charlotte is raped with a champagne bottle by a client feels like a politically correct insur- ance clause. In the end, the film is perhaps too even-handedly in love with the sisterhood it portrays, balancing, for example, Anne’s bourgeois arrogance with her own high-class version of indentured slavery, and failing to give the characters their own breathing space.
n 14 Screen International at the Berlinale February 12, 2012
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