Elles (English Subtitled)

Some of the sequences in Malgorzata Szumowskas film are quite difficult to view - especially the scene where one of the student prostitutes (Anaïs Demoustier) willingly allows herself to be urinated on by one of her clients, or has a champagne bottle thrust into her vagina. These moments are designed to emphasize the pitfalls of the whores existence - even if both Charlotte and Alicja (Joanna Kulig) manage to make sufficient funds to support themselves in some style during their student lives. Nonetheless Szumowksa reminds us that we should not judge their decision too harshly. By contrasting their lives with that of well-to-do journalist Anna (Juliette Binoche), who is writing an article for ELLE magazine about their lives, the director suggests that in many ways the prostitutes live a superior existence. They enjoy an independence that is denied to someone like Anna, who has to spend most of her leisure time caring for a feckless husband (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and her three children. ELLES is full of scenes where Anna is shown working alone in the kitchen, or talking on the phone to a disembodied voice. As the film closes, she is shown silently listening at a dinner party while Patrick and his friends prattle on about various subjects; in the end she grows so frustrated that she simply walks out of the house for a breath of welcome fresh air. In contrast both Charlotte and Alicja enjoy a considerable degree of independence; they exert power over their (mostly middle-aged) clients, to the extent that they can determine in advance what they will do and what they will not do. The money they earn gives them the spending power to please themselves. As the film progresses, so we see Anna becoming more and more enamored of the girls lives. She is shown talking in the park to Charlotte; the two of them become quite close to one another, as denoted through a series of two-shots. While alone with Alicja in Alicijas apartment, Anna partakes of vodka (although claiming that she does not drink), and ends up on a passionate embrace with the younger woman. While alone in her own apartment, Anna pleasures herself in an extended scene, where Szumowskas camera focuses on her face as she gradually comes to orgasm. Sex gives her the kind of power that she can never enjoy either at work or during her family life. In the end, however, that power proves illusory. The film ends with an extended shot of Anna sitting down to breakfast with her husband and two of her children - an image of familial normality that suggests mental as well as physical imprisonment. Although empathizing with the two girls, she can never enjoy their independence. ELLES is a thought-provoking piece, shot in deliberately low-key style. Director Szumowska achieves some striking thematic effects, most notably through the use of music that often contrasts with the emotions of the characters shown on screen. At one moment Anna is shown walking morosely about her living-room; on the soundtrack we hear the second movement of Beethovens Seventh Symphony - a homage to death. The grandeur of the music is set against the mundaneness of Annas life; she would love to improve it, if only she could.

Excellent Spanish movie

A story of a woman, a family, another world; its honest and real. I love the ending scene, life a usual.

If you enjoy this type of movie, rent it!

GREAT MOVIE

Binoche Binoche Binoche

Almost interesting but the internal conflict with the main protagonist (played by Juliette Binoche) is poorly developed.

Kind of has a basic there and back again plot. No character arcs. An arrogant exploration of banality. Might have been funny with an REM soundtrack, everybody hurts.... sometimes.... Instead they ripped off classical music.

Whatever the implications and motivations are, Elles—the female form of they in French—doesnt spell them out, preferring to let us draw our own conclusions. The reductive suggestion that all women are whores and all men essentially johns certainly plays in here, but the film is more complicated than that, recognizing that sex itself is complicated, a once-simple evolutionary imperative thats now tangled up in the web of human consciousness. In its non-procreative form, its ideally a mutual expression of love, but the film portrays its darker side as a commodity to be bought and sold. A power to wield. A source of frustration and a vessel for misplaced desire. This might be nothing new, but Małgorzata Szumowskas provocative treatment of the topic makes Elles worthwhile, and something more than just a showpiece—which it also is—for Juliet Binoches significant acting abilities.

Love it