WORKING GIRLS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Lizzie Borden's third film, behind "Regrouping" (1979) and "Born In Flames" (1983), is a perfect chamber-piece of neo-realist social satire.

The film's feminist trappings of an '80s era Manhattan brothel provides the frame for a piercing commentary on the effects of American capitalism on women.

"Working Girls" could easily be adapted to be a modernday Broadway play.

It would be a sensation for its timeless qualities of social, sexual, and economic truth.

Molly (Louise Smith), a professional photographer, lives with her lesbian girlfriend when she isn't working as a sex worker in a Manhattan brothel run by a domineering madam.

"Have you ever heard of surplus value?"

That theme line shoots like a sharp political dart when a character speaks it.

“All workers create more value at work than they receive in wages. The extra surplus value goes into the boss’s pocket as profit.”

Surplus value is "the surplus produced over and above what is required to survive, which is translated into profit in capitalism. Since the capitalist pays a laborer for his/her labor, the capitalist claims to own the means of production, the worker's labor-power, and even the product that is thus produced."

Female hands hold cups of coffee, count money, and remove cum-filled condoms.

Everyone chisels; there is no place to hide.

Not Rated. 93 mins.

TITANE — CANNES 2021

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. Punk heart still beating.

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Julia Ducournau clearly deserved the Palme d'Or she won for "Titane."

Unpredictable, and simmering with pure dynamic sexual tension, "Titane" is a visceral experience you will not soon forget.

Ducournau milks unfathomable drama and suspense with fundamental rules of dramaturgy that she effortlessly turns on their heads.

Automobile safety, people.

Julia Ducournau is the new Cronenberg. 

All-you-can-eat French erotic social satire body horror. Yum. 

Genius.

FAREWELL, MY QUEEN

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Marie Antoinette takes on the façade of lesbian-rebel-savant in Benoit Jacquot’s nuanced cinematic rendition of Chantal Thomas’s novel. The graceful period drama occurs during Marie Antoinette’s waning days at Versailles (July 14 to 17, 1789) when the French Revolution was just gearing up.

The opulent halls and grounds of the majestic Palace of Versailles make for an intrinsically cinematic staging. Inside the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) takes notice of her “personal reader” Sidonie Laborde’s ample cleavage when the young woman comes to read to the Queen as she lay on her daybed. The microcosm scene manifests the emotional weight of the story.

The bare-footed Queen Antoinette takes notice of the mosquito bites Sidonie (Lea Sidonie) scratches, and calls for her ever-near assistant to tend to them. Such improper intimacy between a Queen and her reader are unheard of, and so excite Sidonie’s imagination — the audience’s imagination — however exaggerated that expectation might be.

Diane Kruger’s Marie Antoinette is a fickle, possibly bi-polar, creation. Her material and sensual obsessions turn coldly, if not judiciously, practical after the storming of the Bastille when she realizes she must escape from Versailles. Sidonie’s consequent epiphany about the Queen’s Sapphic relationship with the Duchess Gabrielle de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen) only fuels her daydreams more about what might be possible for her relationship with the Queen. Sidonie is so blinded by her own tempestuous desire that she fails to complete a vital assignment given her by the Queen.

“Farewell, My Queen” shares a kinship with “My Week With Marilyn” in that both films capture the all-enthralling sensual attraction of a lower class member of society to an impossibly looming cultural figure. While the connection between Marie Antoinette and her hopeful assistant advances nowhere near the intimacy that occurs in “My Week With Marilyn,” the movie embodies a carnal paradox elevated by social crisis. The ensemble performances are solid, as is the film’s terrific production and costume design.

Rated R. 100  mins.