L'Apollonide : souvenirs de la maison close

Very French -- extremely well made movie -- and excellent for sociology studies (psychology) and humanity in general in relation toward prostitution.

Well, there are a few movie about whole house but I never seen something about 19th century old fashioned one.It was a luxurios totally clean classic fashioable upper class house that the story was taking place.The story was about upper class wholes who live and work in this house call <HOUSE OF TOLERNACE>.The owner is a lady who has kids to feed and she knows how to control the ladies till she has trouble with budget and has to end up with closing down the house.There are two particularly beautiful women I noticed. One was Céline Sallette who has a speck on her right side of her nose and the other was Adèle Haenel who is now very very famous with Darden brother's movie <La fille inconnue> that went to Canne and almost won the best picture award. She is not untoucheable.Two ladies are just exquisite and elegant.The great about this movie is when the prostitutes are greeting their clients, they are not beeing nude at all.Maybe beeing nude takes more money and that's the reason. Each men have sex with the ladies wearing their clothes on.I don't even know how the men getting excited without seeing women naked though.But whenever women are with their colleague, they are not afraid being naked. They chage clothes, look at theri bodies, talking about their breasts, and so on.The movie is tend to be a softcore and the director wanted not to show the sex shots wthout women being naked at all I guess that make this movie differ from all the other erotic movies.The music are full of old pop songs that are actually not matched with the era but still enjoyable very much.The ending seems quite questionable when the main actress appears in the 21th century street wandering around looking for a client.It is not possible since she was living in the early 20 century and even late 19th century. She should have been a woman who look similar to the woman we know.Anyway, this movie is more for male and maybe those who are interested in night life in a whole house.Very classy art style film you will face with.

Yes, I did a mistake and bought this flick and, as I said its boring, slow and primitive; and in addition all movie confined to a couple rooms and there is nothing to please eyes and nudity limited to upper parts etc...in other words producer did everything possible to offend my intelligence.I've seen about ten movies about houses of ill repute and most of them lousy except the one done by Tinto Brass which I consider my benchmark.Yes, if you are under age of 18 you may learn something but I learned to read small prints where it says the movie has been nominated for...in other words its considered mainstream propaganda and sure such things as sex should be strongly suppressed by all and any means.Have a nice day.

A beautiful and sad film. It is stylistic and compassionate. I just cannot stop aching for those women and hate some of those clients who are cruel or/and hyprocritical.

i felt the style was similar to Catherine Breillat.it was exquisitely filmed and soared with color and vitality. it felt real.

This film, a drama, is almost a kind of ethnography, an anthropological study not of villagers in Samoa or Inuit seal hunters on the ice sheets of Greenland but of prostitutes living and working in an elegant brothel in Fin de siécle Paris in 1899. The world these beautiful women inhabit is small, enclosed, dark and confining, a world of corsets, rouge, lipstick, hair pins, stockings and high-heels; a life of perfume, champagne, opium and sex, all of them pungent, fragrant, alluring.On the surface all seems fine: pleasure, carnality, frivolity, play. If life is a game, this one tastes delicious. The women are indolent, lazy, gossipy when not working. They play cards, read fortunes, skim penny dreadfuls, chat and smoke hashish pipes. They bathe, groom themselves and others, do menial chores such as washing and mending clothes. In the evening when the clients arrive they are all dolled up. They are beautiful, charming, flirty, flattering. The men are gentlemen in theory, dandies in top hats with waist coats and gold watches on chains. Some come just to observe and listen, to lap up the flattery and pretend it speaks truly, their fragile egos fortified by the sound of such sweet music. Others are hungry for the real thing — not words. Most are married but live in a place where the fires have died out, dampened by years of neglect or even contempt. Sex was made to produce offspring, not to satiate and satisfy husbands, so the lonely crowd in top hats and walking sticks arrive, sad men looking for the lost.One wants to blame them for their debauchery and depravity in some cases, but in the House of Tolerance one does not blame. One accepts and tries to forgive when things go wrong, when men turn abusive and even violent. It’s rare but it happens, the sane world we all want just a dream, an ideal. The men are rich, or most of them are, so Madame cannot afford to alienate them. The business is suffering anyway. Sex is moving away from the brothels to the streets. It’s cheaper there, quicker, more readily available. All the art and theatrical elegance are missing (no music, dance, champagne baths), but the main commodity remains — the sex itself, the thing people hunger for like food, the finest inadequate replacement for love ever discovered, a heady intoxicant, a timeless drug, a rush of excitement that cures for a few seconds all the ills of the world. Or so it seems when the skin and smell of the woman are present and pressed against you, though later you’re not so sure when the money, thrill and woman are gone.It’s too easy to judge, says this intelligent film. Or if we wish let’s place judgement where it belongs — with inequality, patriarchy, hypocrisy and double standards. The women here are the protagonists, as they need to be. They are not hustlers. They are slaves — slaves to a system, society, way of life. Most are in debt. How has this happened? No proper job, no marriage, limited education and opportunities. Also, lavish spending to keep the whole thing going: expensive perfumes, dresses, shoes. They need to be elegant, or appear so, to be desirable. They must also be beautiful and healthy, and of course young. One girl from the provinces named Pauline is only 16. Others may be as old as 30 but not much older. The sell-by date is fixed at some point because the bloom and attraction will fade. Thus the young ones dream of getting out, of marrying a rich baron or barrister, while those older are forced out. What then? The film doesn’t ask, leaving the obvious to us through the imagination.All the lonely people, Paul McCartney wanted to know, where do they all come from? This film answers the question by saying they come from everywhere, rich and poor, man and woman, high and low. Is anyone free? Probably not. But perhaps Madame comes closest, neither giving nor receiving love. She’s only in it for the money, convincing herself all the while that she’s an artiste, not a tradeswoman. But here in the House of Tolerance we do not judge. We just accept, including Madame’s motivations.On the streets the great levelling makes each of us street urchins. That’s what Madame thinks. Art is gone. So too wit and style. The great exuberance, the song and dance of life, has vanished. Now it’s simple but tawdry and depressing: sex for sale as if it were a cheeseburger. Consumers now, that’s what we are, not artists but dumbed-down street urchins with smartphones and credit cards.Yes, sex for sale. Always was and will be one way or another. But what’s sad, Madame thinks, is the loss of what was: the chandeliers and Persian carpets, the mahogany furniture and canopy beds, the smell of jasmine tea and the emerald eyes of the slim female black panther on a chain. Style! There’s no replacing it, no substitute. So of course the final note is one of melancholy. A lost world and art.Near the end we’re jarred and shocked. Modern Paris: filthy, congested, foul air, noisy taxi and car horns. On the kerb stands a hooker waiting to turn a trick.The House of Tolerance was tolerant. That was part of its charm. All are lonely. All are welcome. We have love here, or a powerful form of it. If you love that thought you have come to the right place.In French with English subtitles.

This is a film about life in a Parisian brothel during the Victorian era. It depicts both the glamour and the horror involved in such a life, for the women who are forced to prostitute themselves. We see how these women are used and abused by the 'gentlemen' who visit them.This is a 2011 French film (with English sub-titles) directed by Bertrand Bonello. It's very well acted, and seeks to offer a 'snapshot' into the world of high-class prostitution at the turn of the 20th century. It's a film about sex - but is not intended to sexually excite the viewer. While there are scenes of nudity and sex, none of it is pornographic. The movie explores the hopes and fears of the prostitutes, and captures a glimpse of the human condition.The film presents a epilogue of sorts, showing how prostitution continues today (and, indeed, can be viewed as involving even worse conditions for the women involved).I enjoyed this movie, although I didn't find it 'fun'. It's a serious film, and offers a complex narrative.

Funny story i think

I felt as though I was part of the cast during this movie... Certainly felt enormous empathy for the characters. and the lives they must have lived. Sombre but enjoyable with a subtle message.

Subtitles so while you're reading you're not watching. Don't know why it's an 18 cert.