Michael Glawogger's fearless Whores' Glory demystifies trick turning with a bluntness and sneaky artistry that's sure to make even the most jaded of us choke on our next sitcom-hooker-joke chuckle.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Both a wrenching journalistic exploration of real life and something close to great cinema.
There are no lava-spewing natural phenomena or gut-wrenching slaughterhouse sequences in this unofficial companion piece, but you do witness sex tourists in Bangkok choosing numbered "girlfriends" as if they were picking out lobsters in a tank.
Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo
While Michael Glawogger does make overtures in the wrong directions, he usually seems to know where to steer his material.
Glawogger has the good sense mostly to stay out of the way and let the material speak for itself.
Austrian documentarian Michael Glawogger's Whore's Glory is no "Pretty Woman." But neither does it qualify as an expose.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
Whores' Glory, is as sad a film as you can possibly see. To experience it is to be haunted by the bleakness and ugliness of prostitution, the hopeless trap of it, and the defeat of love that it represents.
Glawogger studiously avoids explicitness until he gets to Mexico, where he finally goes past the bartering stage and behind closed doors as business is conducted. Pleasure isn't part of the transaction.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Quietly powerful but dispiriting documentary, which compares the world's oldest profession as practiced from place to place.
Glawogger doesn't make any moral judgments, but you can't help but feel sorry for the "girls'' and their johns.