Capping off a trilogy that began with the eye-opening “Megacities” and peaked with the brutal elegance of “Workingman’s Death,” “Whores' Glory” takes a similar snapshot approach to the not-so lonely planet of prostitution. Triptych in structure, the film hits three working-class hotbeds of sex for sale, from Thailand, to Bangladesh, and finally to Mexico. Both horrifying and absorbing, these images, stories and details of three labyrinths of earthly delights—moving from the recognizable, grimy gloss of “The Fishtank,” in Bangkok, descending further into the cacophony of Faridpur’s chaos, paradoxically called "The City of Joy," and eventually landing in the last stop to hell, the haunting dusty shadows of Reynosa, nicknamed "The Zone," a landscape nearly as surreal as something out of a Tarkovsky film.

“Whores' Glory” might seem like an ironic title for Michael Glawogger’s most recent documentary, but it commits to a certain candidness. With an amount of spectacle on display, the Austrian aesthete turns his observational gaze on the world’s oldest profession with dignifying inquiry instead of moralizing veneration or degradation. His film reverberates with street-level verisimilitude, favoring the stories of individuals rather than the exploitation of their professions. The sex, for the most part, happens behind closed doors while the entangled mise en scène of hooking a customer is the liaison laid out for the audience. At Glawogger’s cue, these johns, hookers and go-betweens speak volumes about the global village of trickle-down economics and the vagaries of these gender-based social structures.

Unlike “Workingman’s Death,” Glawogger and his cinematographer take a more personal approach to both the people and places depicted. It’s a man’s world that spins on the energy of women—interdependent they are, egalitarian they are not. The bulk of “Whores' Glory” is concerned with the purview of these women and their daily lives. In Mexico, a retired prostitute uninhibitedly shares the tools of her trade with hilarious specificity and bluntness, explaining how treatment with an ice cube makes men bleat like a goat. In Bangladesh, two young women face the camera and talk about their clients for the day. When one starts laughing, the more somber girl says, ”There is so much sorrow and pain. We try to forget sadness with a little laughter, but the pain remains.” Although the sentiment is expected, the emotional impact, from a girl no older than 16, hits with a forceful impact.

There is a balance here that neither victimizes nor villainizes, but that doesn't mean Glawogger is completely impartial. "Whores' Glory" opens with the spectacle of Bangkok’s Fishtank, beautiful women writhing behind glass and harassing potential clients on the street with laser pointers. The enticing sequence, probably the most tantalizing of the film, cuts to a verse from reclusive poet Emily Dickinson: "God is indeed a jealous god—/He cannot bear to see/That we had rather not with Him/But with each other play." That Dickinson might provide context to 21st century prostitution is something of a brilliant turn in itself, but Glawogger hones his intentions by pointing out that his chosen settings are not arbitrary. He addresses three epicenters of the three major religions of the world, and underscores, post-title card, that religion and God act as a necessary anchor to these women—Buddha, Allah and Jesus are a constant in the confusion. Being bound together by sex and religion may be a social construct that is a little hard to swallow, but this is clearly the case for the forgotten strata in developing countries.

Glawogger tempers his formal concerns with an evocative pragmatism about the somewhat irreconcilable state of the world through the eyes of the lowly prostitute, at once representative of humanity’s resilience and frailty. He may have the philosophical splendor of truth’s beauty on his mind, but he also explores Plato’s postulation about the poles between the clarity found in objects illuminated by reality and the uncertainty in the twilight world of change and decay. It is with this sort of thoughtful delicacy that Glawogger artistically facilitates a documentary engaged in objective verity and personal license, conspicuously aligned with the sounds of Tricky, Coco Rosie and PJ Harvey on the soundtrack. 

Our final destination, the one-horse town of Reynosa is a dirt track where cars ply the options in barely lit doorways of track housing. Madness, destitution and misogyny inhabit the frays of the Zone, hinting to a dysfunction that has otherwise been only on the periphery. Thirty years ago, Godfrey Reggio asked us to see beyond the layer after layer of commodity that suffocates the natural order of the world. At this point, it seems impossible, if not unrealistic, to look beyond the material excess of the world, so Michael Glawogger looks at those layers of commodity straight in the face. 'This is what we have,' he seems to say. But in the dark and lonely depths of Reynosa, an implicit question is posed: 'Is this what we want?'

Review by:
Kathie Smith