Programmer's Note

When it comes to its treatment of prostitu­tion onscreen, cinema so often descends into sentiment that truth gets flattened under fantasy. Whores’ Glory — the third film in director Michael Glawogger’s glo­balization trilogy, following Megacities and Workingman’s Death — stands that tradition on its head by investigating the ordinary people behind these extreme professions.

We begin in Bangkok at a brothel called The Fishtank. Inside, women prepare for work, doing their hair and makeup before taking a seat behind a glass win­dow until customers select them. Each woman wears a number as if she were a contestant in a pageant or an item in a catalogue. Glawogger simply observes the women’s daily routines, and those of the men who hire them, interspersing brief and occasional interviews about their various preferences.

The location then shifts to Bangladesh, honing in on the red-light district in the city of Faridpur. In an astonishing intro­duction to the place, Glawogger’s camera follows a foul-mouthed prostitute down a narrow alley as she talks to a regular cus­tomer on her mobile phone, imploring him to visit her. Again, the film’s level of access is as impressive as the willingness of the subjects to speak. Fearless and shame­less, the workers describe the brothels as essential to the smooth function of society. One woman, relating the bleak future that awaits her young daughter, is completely matter-of-fact.

Whores’ Glory has the discipline of a clear-eyed, observational documentary, but it is also supremely stylish. The images flow with rich, saturated colours. Sequences are structured with the emotional arc of fiction. Glawogger even allows himself atmospheric music on the soundtrack, with songs by art­ists like Antony and the Johnsons setting a melancholy, confessional tone. By the time we get to the third and final setting in Reynosa, Mexico, our immersion is com­plete — Whores’ Glory paints an indelible portrait of people living beyond the limits of polite society but within the bounds of what’s human. Cameron Bailey