This film is, of course, superbly directed, with a magnificent central performance by Catherine Deneuve, and very much comes across like a literary novel but with camerawork instead of prose. The film is of course about Severine- 23, newly married but still a repressed virgin but who has deeply sexual and indeed kinky fantasies- I like how horsey men with riding crops have a symbolic use throughout. A well-off woman with a maid, no less, she nevertheless ends up working in a brothel out of sheer sexual desire.
Importantly, I think, it is recognised that most women in such a position are forced into sex work by economic necessity; the character of Charlotte is there to represent this. Nor is the dark side underemphasised- customers are violent and dodgy (although, as with Marcel, bad boys have their attractions) and, most disturbingly, a client shows a deeply perverted interest in thevmadam’s visiting school age niece. But for Severine, with no economic need to do this, it’s all about the rough sex and rough treatment she needs sexually and isn’t getting at home from a husband whom she loves but who does not understand her sexual needs. Importantly, though, the film emphasises that sex is not necessarily always about men dominating women but can be the other way around by showing us a client who likes to be dominated himself. But all this takes place in a world which remains misogynistic, with Husson as an important mouthpiece for this entitled misogyny.
It would be silly, I think, to deny that this film could be very much criticised on male gaze grounds, and there is inevitably a whole host of unexamined misogynist assumptions. This is not a feminist film, and while it treats its women as three dimensional characters it presents a very male point of view. But it is, nevertheless, an extraordinary piece of work.
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