Rating: 4.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 14/52 | Sundance Hits
Molly wakes up next to her girlfriend. They’ve been together for years, having a child. Their morning has that quiet routine of people who feel comfortable together and feel loved by one another.
Molly goes to the film studio to develop her pictures and put together slides. The photos are Nan Goldin’s — she provided them for the film.
She then takes her bike to work — a brothel run out of a two-story apartment run by Lucy.
The other women arrive, getting ready for their shifts. They serve clientele between those serviced by street workers or high-end call girls. Middle-class sex work, more or less.
The film depicts a day in Molly’s life. It highlights the physical labor of sex and the emotional labor of performance. They must be both assertive yet never bring the client’s sexuality into question.
Molly has worked at the brothel for two months. This makes her one of the new girls. She is still learning about some regulars and their fetishes.
We get brief glimpses into the women’s personal lives. The difficulties of dating when your partner knows you do sex work or have a child at home with no one to watch them. These are not wealthy women. Some of them need other jobs along with this one, whether it’s serving tables or dealing coke.
We also see the camaraderie of shared inside jokes or nicknames for regulars. We also see how easily severed that connection can be between you and someone else, and the clients keep picking someone else. Anyone who has worked in food service or any other part of the service industry will recognize a lot of common ground.
The film is not shy about its depiction of sex and nudity. It helps undercut any eroticism to reveal the hard work and performance required. Lizzy Borden herself called it “anti-erotica.” The film, however, holds no judgment about the morality of sex work either.
The movie responds to Second Wave Feminism, in which pornography is violence and any sex is rape. The film argues against the “female vs male gaze” distinction. It lets the camera “cut up” the body to articulate the inner workings of the character’s minds and experiences.
The film, however, doesn’t hide that women made it. That juxtaposition is a flag. It is a way to signal consent to images otherwise scrutinized.
The jaunty soundtrack tinges every session, no matter how tame, with dread.
The script is brilliant in the way it characterizes everyone. It pieces together a world that feels real yet also maintains a pace and dynamic with the characters that it feels like a hangout comedy for stretches.
How do you follow up on the explosive and original Born in Flames? By making a sincere, human, and radical portrait of sex work that is still controversial today.