BIBLIOTHEQUE PASCAL: sex trade as fairy tale

This film is a visual fantasy, creating a world that doesn't exist but in art. It reminded me of  a Terry Gilliam film because of its quirky characters and setting. Interesting, the movie has bright colors and exciting sets but is about a world that is dark and dangerous, where men are predators and poor women are sold as sex slaves. Yet, it keeps from being too disturbing because of its fairy tale like style. 

Now, when I say fairy tale style I do not mean it makes the sex trade look fun or not-so-bad, the underground sex trade world of this film is nasty and often leads to death for the women (and boys) who get trapped in it. The consequences are real and harsh, but the scenery is over the top, bright colors and breath taking props, the workers are dressed in costumes that are not so sexy and more like visual candy.

Let me back up. The film follows Mona a poor but tough women who lives in Hungary. She becomes impregnated by a convict on the run from police who takes her hostage and then seduces her with his dream, because his dreams come to life when he has them. Soon she is a single mother who works in a circus doing puppet shows. Her father, a nasty man, arrives one night and tricks her into going to Germany with him, where she is sold to some men. Soon she is sent off to work in a club called Bibliotheque Pascal, where she is locked in a room and dressed up like Joan of Arc. She has to memorize a script as Joan and then men come and rape her. Luckily the rape scenes are few and not graphic, but the consequences are very real. People do die. The colors are bright, the imagery fun but the topic is dark. 

The film does suggest that perhaps the fantasy like elements are simply that, fantasy. Perhaps Mona chooses to remember things like this as a way to cope, or because she is insane, hard to say. It opens and closes in a child services office with Mona trying to convince a man that she is a fit mother and the movie is far more realistic in these scenes. The colors are muted, the camera more static. But as soon as Mona tells her story it jumps into hyper color and at times feels like it is about to become a musical. (It never does) 

Portraying sex slavery in this hyper real way is risky, recently SUCKER PUNCH tried and failed miserably, making the girls victims that have no escape and yet glossing over any real sense of what the girls (who are forced to work in a brothel) would be going through. BIBLIOTHEQUE PASCAL does not gloss over this, the horror of what Mona is going through is clear. She is terrified, trapped and yet never gives in. She is determined to escape her prison and get back to her daughter. The fantasy elements are simply Mona's way of dealing with the pain of a brutal life.