Image: toutlecine.com
Text: Tristan Stansbury Worthington
Fin de siècle would seem to be something of a fashion in visual media at the moment: first Maison Close, Canal+'s successful television series about a 19th-century Parisian brothel and now L'Apollonide: souvenirs d'une maison close, Bertrand Bonello's new film... about a 19th-century Parisian brothel. Given the boost Mathieu Almaric's Tournée gave to Paris's burlesque scene, can we expect this new trend to pass from the silver screen to the city's streets, with establishments of debauched delectation illuminating their discreet red lanterns on every corner?
Unlikely, for as the film initially deftly, but ultimately heavy handedly demonstrates, institutions such as l'Apollonide belong to a bygone era of rustling silk skirts and crisp linen, of tight-laced corsets and repressed sexual urges, when men were men and women were objects for their sexual gratification. Indeed, the film recounts the last few months of this idealised house of pleasure, crossing from the 19th century's Age of Romance to the 20th century's Era of Science. With an exquisite aestheticism, Bonello brings the atmosphere of this cloistered world, this convent for the demi-monde, to life. If Huysmans could have made cinema, this is what his films would have looked like: the mood is dreamy and impressionistic, a two-hour-long ocular treat (for those of us not made uncomfortable by excessive displays of bared flesh and physical intimacy), rich not only visually, but also in terms of its cultural, literary and historical references. Huysmans probably wouldn't have chosen the same soundtrack as Bonello, however, with the latter seemingly trying to inject an edgy note into his period confection with bellowing 60's funk. The effect is jarring, and therefore could be seen to be in keeping with the film's non-linear and at times downright delirious structure. Unfortunately it is a step too far in the direction of “look at me I'm actually doing something different” which at times seems to seize Bonello. The same goes for his bizarre occasional use of split screens more appropriate for a 1970s thriller.
Throughout the film, time jumps, slows down and repeats itself in a seemingly endless cycle of champagne-coiffing and client-satisfying, of dressing and being undressed. But don't for a minute think there's anything bawdy about it : almost every moment is one of exquisitely torpid languor or indolent grace, sharply offset by an act of acute violence and the mortal blow of venereal disease that mark the brothel's history, though even these Bonello manages to endow with heady sensuality. The lack of narrative structure is smoothly handled as the focus effortlessly shifts from one girl to another, to the brothel's intriguing Madame (enchantingly portrayed by Noémie Lvovsky), to the daily running of such an enterprise, to some of the key moments in the life of the community, one thread intertwining with a second, or breaking off suddenly to be replaced by another only re-emerge again. All this within the walls of the brothel, giving the film an extraordinary intimacy, bordering on the claustrophobic, for although many enter, only once do we leave the house's opulent interior of velvet and silk for an afternoon in the country and a breath of freedom - chaperoned, naturellement, by the all-seeing, all-knowing Madame.
Relationships within the film are key: the girls seem prey to some form of Stockholm syndrome, whereby they develop a mother-daughter bond with their Madame who, while she appears to display genuine affection for her employees (read: slaves), is nonetheless the one who keeps them imprisoned in an endless spiral of debt they can never pay off. Among themselves, there is a strong sense of camaraderie and a surprising lack of rivalry. With their clients, the boundaries between a working relationship and real caring become painfully blurred. Yet while within the film relationships are complex, it is its aesthetic aspect that dominates, offering the audience little opportunity to develop any emotional engagement with this band of imprisoned Amazons. Surprising, given the extraordinary talent displayed by the actresses. Most notable among them has to be Alice Barnole, with her sensitive, fragile performance as “la Juive”, a mysterious beauty who, following her mutilation at the hands of a favourite client, becomes “the smiling woman”, the brothel's lackey and occasional freak-show attraction, all the while retaining incredible grace and poise.
Perhaps it is just this eternal grace and poise, even in the victim of a cruel mutilation who spends the rest of her days scrubbing corsets and cooking stews, this jaded languor that pervades the film which make it so emotionally cold. Perhaps the one antidote to this overly heightened aestheticism is Clotilde, powerfully portrayed by Céline Salette: an inelegant waif in ill-fitting bustiers whose descent into an opium-induced delirium colours the film's disjointed denouement, as the brothel breathes its final, beautiful breath. Yet somehow even Clotilde's rather clichéd story fails to incite even the most reflexive of sympathetic reactions.
The absence of emotion is, granted, a pity. But nonetheless the film is undoubtedly a success merely in terms of its outstanding artistry, as a dreamlike journey through Bonello's fantastical evocation of a late-19th-century brothel and the decadence of a bygone era. At least, it would have been, had Bonello not been tempted to end the film with a sudden lurch from period reverie to harsh reality in a grainy two-minute documentary-style portrayal of the sex trade along the periphérique of modern-day Paris. This obscure move, which comes completely out of the blue in a film that up to that moment is completely devoid of any social or political commentary whatsoever, means one can't help but wonder whether it is, rather than an idealised vision, rather some kind of deluded nostalgia for the Golden Age of Prostitution. A Golden Age, which if now is lost forever, was probably never golden, and most likely only exists in the product of Bonello's admirably active imagination.
"Psst......wanna see some dirty pictures?"
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