In Malgoska Szumowska’s Elles, Juliette Binoche plays Anne, a freelance journalist who is writing an article about Paris’ young self-employed prostitutes (i.e. operating without pimps or madams) for a well-known magazine. (Better luck next time product placement gurus!) Anne’s two subjects are Charlotte – who works under the name of Lola (Anais Demoustier) – and an initially un-named Polish Economics student listed in the closing credits as Alicja (Joanna Kulig). Mid-interview, vodka-swilling Alicija tries turning the tables on the interviewer, by asking Anne about her sexual experiences. In a standard interviewer’s ploy, Anne says, 'We’re not here to talk about me." But of course, as a movie audience, we are very much focussed on Binoche, who established her international career by taking on-screen sexual risks in films like Damage and The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Elles takes its audience remains an ambiguous place
The interviews are played in flashback memories, as Anne seemingly avoids writing the article when she’s past deadline, instead watching internet porn, masturbating and preparing a meal for her husband’s boss who is coming over for dinner. A subplot involves Anne’s eldest son, whose primary function is to reveal that his parents no longer sleep together and the possibility that Anne’s job is just an elaborate ruse so that she never has to again. The film places Anne under the microscope and Binoche gives us plenty to see. Only visibly semi-nude once, she goes to the toilet twice, but more importantly showcases her willingness to be completely exposed by her character’s foibles. This abandonment to her art is epitomised not by a sexual scene but the acting choice Binoche makes when Anne drunkenly laughs out loud with her open mouth visibly full of cheese. Any actress who allows herself to be caught in such an unattractive pose (try it with your friends, see the reaction you get) is willing and daring enough to take her audience anywhere.
Where Elles takes its audience remains an ambiguous place. Even as it flirts with the emotional distance of Luis Bunuel’s Belle de Jour (1967), it is also in many ways a critique of prostitution as damning as Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-Ever (2002). But unlike Mizoguchi Kenji’s seemingly non-judgemental Japanese classic Street of Shame (1956) which carefully depicts the pros and cons of the oldest profession before eventually committing to a position against it, Elles begrudgingly accepts prostitution’s presence as inevitable as it is unattractive.
Thankfully, not all the men in Elles are clichéd big, bad 'johns’. Some humiliate themselves often enough to arouse pity. The film is unsurprisingly more concerned about prostitution’s toll on women, but despite depicting brutal arguments, physical coercion, outlining virological risks and an implication of contraband sexual violence that was perhaps too subtle or too swift for Australian censors to recognise, Elles arguably turns the other way. The provocative suggestions that computers and the internet are elaborate primers for pornography consumption and the theory that pornography inevitably creates clients and practitioners for prostitution have some merit. Both concepts are also somewhat reductive, so that Elles leaves audiences with a dark view of humanity and a conclusion that may make both male and female viewers uncomfortable.
