FILM

France 2011 126 mins Subtitles Dir: Bertrand Bernello Starring: Hafsia Herzi, Celine Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth, Noemie Lvovsky

Awash with fin de siecle decadence, this languorous (Read: boring) account of life in an opulent Parisian bordello that "reeks of sperm and champagne" veers alarmingly from the soapy to the bizarre.

It's 1899 and the writing is already on the wall for upmarket brothel L'Appollonide, whose strict yet kindly madam Marie-France (film-maker Noemie Lvovsky) lives on the premises with her young children. Each saddled with massive debts, the ladies lounge around in elegant tableaux, dressed to the nines apart from the bits that hang out for professional reasons, feigning interest in the often pervy aristocratic menfolk who pay for sex. One of these knifes the unfortunate Madeline (Barnole) across the face, leaving her with a grotesque fixed smile - which has the effect of making her even more attractive to the jaded as "the woman who laughs". Another prefers his prostitutes to perform 'doll acts'. The arrival of decidedly Rubenesque 15-year-old Pauline (Zabeth) shakes things up a bit. But for the most part it's an endless round of sex, flushing sperm out of vaginas with cologne at bedtime, and humiliating regular compulsory inspections by the pox doctor. As one 'ho opines, "F*cking is a f*ck-awful job."

Claustrophobic to the point of being suffocating, 'House of Tolerance' is quite remarkably boring for a film with so many naked ladies spouting naughty talk. But then director Bertrand Bernello seems to have a knack for making sex dull, having been responsible for 2001's explicit-yet-tedious 'The Pornographer'. Sure, it's lushly photographed, but the many mis-steps include painfully anachronistic '60s music, clunky flashbacks and leaden visual metaphors. Priapic punters should be warned they may end up yearning for the opium pipe favoured by those onscreen. (Robin Askew)

Website www.lapollonide-music.com/

Opens: January 27

Copyright Robin Askew 2012