When I was much younger and poorer, I used to have a job like the one of the mostly silent gay chauffeur in this film: I drove a group of prostitutes from my Romanian homeland around and checked whether they were safe. Not so rare an occupation for gays, it seems. While watching this, I felt taken back directly to those days in the early 90s, and I still can't believe just how much this film got prostitution right. Every character corresponds to women I've met who did this job, with same goals, same social situation, same characteristics.
The clients are in every detail like the clients I saw; Ayouch doesn't flinch to portray French men as wannabe machos who get deservedly ripped off, and Saudis as rich scum who cannot have sex without degrading the women they're paying, albeit handsomely. That's what may have gotten the film banned in Morocco, but what certainly did it is the scene in which the ladies get a little boy vendor to admit he's "going with the Europeans". The ban is almost ironic because this film is so much more than a portrait of contemporary Moroccan or Arab society; this really can and does happen anywhere.
No film I've ever seen has corresponded so much to the reality of prostitution as I witnessed it, they're usually focusing on family issues to make the issue more palpable. This one doesn't, and Ayouch deserves more viewers and more respect for that.
The clients are in every detail like the clients I saw; Ayouch doesn't flinch to portray French men as wannabe machos who get deservedly ripped off, and Saudis as rich scum who cannot have sex without degrading the women they're paying, albeit handsomely. That's what may have gotten the film banned in Morocco, but what certainly did it is the scene in which the ladies get a little boy vendor to admit he's "going with the Europeans". The ban is almost ironic because this film is so much more than a portrait of contemporary Moroccan or Arab society; this really can and does happen anywhere.
No film I've ever seen has corresponded so much to the reality of prostitution as I witnessed it, they're usually focusing on family issues to make the issue more palpable. This one doesn't, and Ayouch deserves more viewers and more respect for that.