THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
The body that is sold to the customer. The same who, later, offers himself out of love and abandons himself to desire: this is the subject of Henrika Kull’s second feature film. Subject that the German director ended up approaching after a long work of research within brothels, integrating several months one of them as a bartender and assistant manager. The experience, his prolonged discussions with prostitutes and their clients inspired only joy. Disturbing film which, by hatching a romantic encounter in this universe of sex, develops a story that is both raw and sensual where the body is at the center, omnipotent to the point of making professional and intimate spheres indivisible.
A succession of sequences, which we know recur every day, introduces us to Sasha (Katharina Behrens), a prostitute in a brothel in Berlin: journey on the train, arrival at work, change of outfit, reception of the first client . The latter, a novice in these places, must be reassured. The next, conversely, is a regular Sasha asks about her family. Others will prefer to see the girls one after the other before making their choice. Routine, in short, for these sex workers who, between two passes, find themselves in a common room where joy, complicity and tenderness reign.
That afternoon, a newcomer experiences it. Quickly put at ease and immediately accepted by her colleagues, the young woman is called Maria, calls herself Jessy, radiates with her sweetness, intrigues with her discretion and the androgynous features of her interpreter. The director having had, in fact, this judicious idea of entrusting the role to the artist, model, queer writer Adam Hoya.
Flesh Trade
On the surface of these skins and this flesh which Henrika Kull shows, without evading or dwelling on it, the trade quickly begins to circulate something barely perceptible and yet obvious: the reciprocal attraction, hesitant and trembling, between Sasha and Mary. The first, bright quadra, lived as a couple, had a son who now lives with his father in Brandenburg. She visits them regularly, relations are good but nothing could bring her back. The second, a little over 20 years old, writes poems, recounts on the voicemail of a father (no doubt imaginary) the details of an entirely invented life.
In the case of Maria and Sasha, love comes with questioning the body – its limits and its memory.
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