the whore
by Douglas Messerli
Bastian Schweitzer (screenwriter and director) Gigolo / 2005
[15 minutes]
Karim (Salim Kéchiouche) is a gigolo for a
wealthy unnamed Parisian female (Amanda Lear) who is growing increasingly
frustrated with his brooding silences and calculated lies. Even in his
diaristic correspondence the good-looking Karim writes “Trust no one. Don’t say
anything. Talk to no one. Conceal everything.”
Although he claims to be a former Egyptian boxer he is really, so she
has uncovered, Algerian. She doesn’t mind that, but the lies, his refusal to
speak, to talk about his past finally has lead her to the realization that her
dream of having a youthful lover that might bring out her own beauty is over.
As she confides to a telephone correspondent, “Karim must go.”
Yet
we see the situation also from Karim’s eyes, learn of his increasing
frustration of being a plaything for wealthy individuals and his growing his
anger for even having come to Paris. On the side, we quickly discern, Karim is
also being paid by an equally wealthy male (Stéphane Rolland) to be his lover,
to make high-class semi-porn movies, and to serve his purposes as well.
At
other moments, we see Karim getting fucked by toughs under Paris bridges. And
we gradually learn something about his own childhood, how his mother, a
prostitute herself, left him, and how he was used as a male prostitute back in
Algeria as well. He describes himself, through his Paris life, as being no one
but a whore, a dog who has learned to bite.
French-speaking Swiss director Bastian Schweitzer’s film hands us a
firecracker about to explode. The melodramatic situation he has created, in
fact, does finally break Karim apart, as he is forced to leave both of his
wealthy supporters and attempts in a long drug-induced period of a few days to
spill out his memories and feelings in the form of a vast apologetic letter to
the woman for who he could not be the lover she desired, and who apparently he
most desired to please.
Schweitzer’s work, although beautifully filmed, is far too
psychologically explanatory and sentimental for my taste, but reminds us that
there are individuals trapped within a world of sexual relationships not entirely
of their own making. If nothing else, the director provides with a quick
glimpse of the underbelly of the privileged world of Parisian wealth in the
early 21st century.
Los Angeles, March 27, 2023
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2023).
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