Immersion incognito of a French writer in a close Berlin house, this is the promise of The House which just came out in physical format.
First creepy fiction
After the documentary Wonder Boy, Olivier Rousteing, born under X in 2019 (visible on Netflix), already noticed at the Caesars, the young director Anissa Bonnefont attack an even more sulphurous subject: prostitution. Inspired by Emma Becker's eponymous self-fiction, one follows an inspirational failure writer Emma (Ana Girardot), choosing to simmer in the world of Berlin brothels to describe it from inside.
The HouseIt is the assurance of having a new look at a plot of the middle of prostitution. The characterization of Emma's character is indeed a pleasure to see: totally free, sexually flourished, doing this job by choice. A woman separated from the judgment of others and fully endowed with her body. This is an interesting point of view, in a time when women's rights are advancing, but unfortunately still far from a fantasy of gender equality.
A piece of the middle of prostitution, I said, because director Anissa Bonnefont is interested in the story of a single woman – and through a fraction of prostitutes doing this job by choice – and never intends to gild the image of the world's oldest profession. Moreover, the film does not leave any doubt about this, which is difficult to deal with without falling into generalities or prejudice.
Pass(s) and iron
But the film quickly falls into a certain redundancy... In fact, the customers follow, almost automatically, a conceptual and rather archetypal view of the association of the house closed: the beau-gosse, the old friendly, the violent type, the dangerous drug addict, the sexually frustrated father, etc. This gallery of male characters seems more to have a theoretical function – confront Emma to the plurality of the customers of the brothel – and makes it a rather programmatic film, responding to the assumed will of the director: creating debate. Visually, the film remains wise and the scenes struggle to unfold in view of their ever tighter duration.
The wrong example
Moreover, the film could be criticized for building up a free woman and assuming her will to prostitute a bourgeois woman, not for financial necessity, but for the sole purpose of writing a book. This is certainly the very concept of the basic material – Becker's book – but remains a very unrepresentative vision of reality... A little like the Yesstreham Immanuel Carrère, where one decides to portray the ordeal of the life of a housekeeper across the eyes of a journalist infiltrated into the environment, incarnated by Juliette Binoche.
A half-tone film
But The House offers a beautiful panel of scenes, sometimes suffocating, sometimes disturbing, where actress Ana Girardot sets herself – clean and figurative – naked. A risky, but largely successful, bet that she shares with others in particularAure Atika and Rossy de Palma. Note also the presence at the casting of Philippe Rebbot, bringing a touch of humour and lightness to a story that is often bleak. Anyway, The House is a daring challenge in the French film landscape and is indicative of the audacity of his director and main actress, more than he manages to become a perfectly accomplished film proposal.
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