The Whores

An engagingly ramshackle, mostly light-hearted look at the lives of a group of prostitutes (one of them male), shot in b/w with a simplicity at times faintly reminiscent of Pasolini. Without moralising, Grimaldi proffers (largely inconsequential) vignettes revelling in the details of everyday life: the bitching, the camaraderie, the dealings with pimps and clients, the lack of business on Christmas Day. The overall matter-of-fact tone creates, for the most part, a surprising aura of sweet innocence, though odd moments involving violence and racism (a number of the women's johns are Turks and Moroccans) acknowledge the potential dangers of prostitution. Minor, then, but funny, perceptive and, now and then, touching.