Synopsis
In Bangkok, Thailand, women punch a clock and wait for clients in a brightly lit glass box; in the red-light district of Faridpur, Bangladesh, a madam haggles over the price of a teenage girl; and in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, crack-addicted women pray to a deity named Lady Death.
Your Movie Library
Recommendations
- 90
Salon
Both a wrenching journalistic exploration of real life and something close to great cinema. - 83
The A.V. Club
Glawogger studiously avoids explicitness until he gets to Mexico, where he finally goes past the bartering stage and behind closed doors as business is conducted. Pleasure isn't part of the transaction. - 80
Time Out
There are no lava-spewing natural phenomena or gut-wrenching slaughterhouse sequences in this unofficial companion piece, but you do witness sex tourists in Bangkok choosing numbered "girlfriends" as if they were picking out lobsters in a tank. - 75
Slant Magazine
While Michael Glawogger does make overtures in the wrong directions, he usually seems to know where to steer his material. - 75
New York Post
Glawogger doesn't make any moral judgments, but you can't help but feel sorry for the "girls'' and their johns. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
Whores' Glory, is as sad a film as you can possibly see. To experience it is to be haunted by the bleakness and ugliness of prostitution, the hopeless trap of it, and the defeat of love that it represents. - 70
Village Voice
Michael Glawogger's fearless Whores' Glory demystifies trick turning with a bluntness and sneaky artistry that's sure to make even the most jaded of us choke on our next sitcom-hooker-joke chuckle. - 70
The New York Times
Quietly powerful but dispiriting documentary, which compares the world's oldest profession as practiced from place to place.
