House of Pleasures

Bertrand Bonello

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4.00

House of Pleasures

Synopsis

A young woman begins a new life at the Apollonide bordello, a high-class brothel in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.

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Recommendations

100
Slant Magazine
A brief history of time and space, according to Bertrand Bonello.
91
The A.V. Club
Without soft-pedaling it in the least, Bonello nonetheless mourns the passing of a time where prostitutes didn't control their destinies, but at least had each other.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
No one, male or female, has any fun, but the men behave as if they do. They are all half-stupefied by the languor in which they drown.
80
Village Voice
The filmmaker gives full vent to his romanticism by staging an End of the Epoch party, with tearful sex workers dancing to "Nights in White Satin," then steps on the mood with yet another farewell fête, commemorating Bastille Day. The prisoners are free - to walk the streets. Ironic, no?
80
Chicago Reader
Like Walter Benjamin, Bonello associates this insularity with both innocence and the 19th century; and when, in the final sequence of House of Pleasures, he dispenses with the security exuded by these subjects, the effect is like being shaken violently out of a dream.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
It's a strange film, very original and very good. Just by virtue of the subject matter, it can't help but be erotic, and yet eroticism is not the movie's purpose.
63
New York Post
Despite copious full-frontal female nudity, House of Pleasures isn't mere sexploitation. Rather, it's a gorgeously filmed portrait of a bygone era, with painstaking attention to period detail. On the downside, the movie is overlong.
60
Time Out
The result is erratic, occasionally WTF hilarious (three words: revenge by panther!), and in its transgressive tracks-of-my-tears climax, capable of finding pleasure in being bat-shit crazy.