Apart from one brief glimpse of the outside world, House of Tolerance takes place entirely in an opulent Parisian brothel at the dawn of the 20th Century. It’s a film that doesn’t so much deliver a plot but rather shows us a few months in the lives of its central characters, a group of jaded sex workers, including disfigured Madeline (Alice Barnole), opium-addicted Clotilde (Celine Sallette) and trainee Pauline(Illiana Zabeth), working under the unforgiving eye of their madam (Noémie Lvovsky). Their work days are at best depressingly mundane and at worst tragic.
Betrand Bonello’s film is an eerily detached exploration of the lives and mindset of its central close-knit group of prostitutes turns it out it isn’t all Moulin Rouge style can-canning and hanging out with famous artists. Theirs is a bleak existence where the best they can hope for is a client who will show them some respect and where they are constantly at risk of succumbing to disease or, as in the horrifying prologue, a psychotic customer.
It’s a film that to make its point has to be slow paced and although Bonello gives the film a lavish, painterly look and injects moments of surrealism (including an anachronistic soundtrack) and despite the characters being well written and acted, it does drag. It’s also a film with slightly worrying misogynistic undertones. The women in House of Tolerance are subjected to a lot of humiliation and abuse. This is an accurate depiction of the lack of respect prostitutes received in turn-of-the-century Paris and probably still do today, and it’s always shown from the perspective of the victims but it still feels a little exploitative seeing it on screen and you suspect many viewers won’t understand the condemning position the film is taking and will simply take it at face value as sleazy entertainment.
Most viewers won’t see House of Tolerance as entertaining at all; it’s a gruelling experience to watch both because of its deliberately slow pace and its occasional flashes of unflinching violence and degradation. But despite that it feels worthwhile and leaves several haunting images in your mind, not least the last shot of the film, which suggests that even a century after the film is set there are still people living similarly bleak lives to those of its main characters.
The only extras are a making of the film’s prologue, footage of rehearsals and interviews with Bonello and some of his cast. After having watched the film it’s actually reassuring to watch these features and see the actresses involved looking healthy and happy.
Overall Verdict: A thoroughly deglamourized and bleak depiction of live as a 19th Century prostitute, House of Tolerance is not an easy watch but makes it’s point well.
Special Features:
A House of Illusions The making of the film’s prologue
Rehearsal sessions
Interviews with director and cast
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon