Sunday 21 April 2013

Elles

I was unexpectedly impressed by Elles starring Juliette Binoche and this is my film of the recent month of film experiencing. The film is directed and co written by the Polish Malgorzata Szumowska. Juliette plays a journalist in Paris undertaking research for an article on female student prostitutes. The two students who agree to be interviewed are nothing like what she expects and finds that they fearless, unashamed and in control. Instead of she having an effect on the young women they have a profound effect on and the relationship with her husband and two sons with everything coming to a head at a dinner party for her husband’s boss his wife and another colleague.



Juliette is disturbed by all she learns, not just the response of two girls to having sex with strangers, usually old enough to be their fathers if not older, but she learns of the men who talk openly about their lives, their work and usually their wives and families. This brings home that the men are ordinary leading ordinary lives look usually trying to recapturing the sexual excitement of their youth no longer satisfied by domestic sex. However there are dangers to as one of the girls is beaten up by a client.



Their experience has the effect on getting Juliette to reflect on her own sexuality and which in turn has a disturbing impact on her husband and their relationship becomes threatened. The film is more than a dramatised documentary and I thought revealed many insights about adult relationships in general. The two young women student prostitutes also gave first rate performances as did her husband and the two sons.

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