Day 4. L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la Maison Close (2011)

This is a very important film in Adèle's career. It was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2011, which gave her great exposure, and she worked with a number of women that she would continue to work with over the years (in particular Maia Sandoz & Céline Sallette). 

Adèle was nominated for the female best new talent César for this role (her second nomination for this award), and it (along with her other work, but mostly this one I think) led to her being awarded a Shooting Stars Award in 2012. This is an award for the best young acting talent in Europe, which gives the winners a huge boost to their careers. Later Adèle chose to appear in a cameo in the director, Bertrand Bonello's, later film Nocturama, which we shall watch later in the film festival.

L’Apollonide: Souvenirs de la Maison Close

Trailer

https://youtu.be/cSiL6-uE1F0

Movie available to rent or buy on Youtube & GooglePlay

Alt Titles

House of Pleasure; House of Tolerance.

Year

2011

Director

Bertrand Bonello

Synopsis

The dawn of the XXth century: L'Apollonide, a house of tolerance, is living its last days. In this closed world, where some men fall in love and others become viciously harmful, the girls share their secrets, their fears, their joys and their pains…

Honours

 • Sélection Officielle Festival Cannes 2011

 • Adèle: Prix Lumière Du Meilleure Espoir Féminin

 • Adèle: Nominée Pour Le Meilleur Espoir Féminin Aux Césars 2012

 • Adèle: Shooting Stars Award Au Berlinale 2012

Adèle’s role

Léa, one of the working girls in the brothel.

Excerpts from reviews

“Adele Haenel, who plays a prostitute named Lea, had a meeting with Bonello before she read the screenplay. ''I loved it,'' she says. ''It was full of information, feelings, perceptions.'' Haenel, 22, played her first lead role at 13 but only recently committed herself to acting full time. Talking about House of Tolerance, she is full of ideas and analysis and eager to discuss all aspects of the film.

Haenel is interested in the film's broader implications and was taken with the idea that its setting can be seen as a metaphor for cinema. She recalls a scene in which Lea is asked by a client to present herself as a kind of automaton, or living doll. ''The scene that I did for the audition is also a kind of audition within the film,'' she says.”

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/dreams-held-captive-20120224-1tskg.html

“Bonello has said that actresses were fighting to participate in the film, which had a tight budget of €3.8m, a trivial sum given the wealth parading on screen. This boldness was rewarded by powerful, nuanced roles, and in particular strong performances from Céline Sallette, Italy’s Jasmine Trinca, Alice Barnole, Hafsia Herzi, Adèle Haenel and Iliania Zabeth.”

https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/203685/

Comments

The comment from Adéle (above) shows her feminist stance, even at 22.

Adèle worked with Maia Sandoz on this film. Adèle has since done a number of theatre projects with Maia—Trilogie Mayenburg (2013-15), L’Abattage Rituel de Gorge Mastromas (2016) and Zaï Zaï Zaï Zaï (2018).

Interview with the director Bertrand Bonello, Adèle Haenel & Céline Sallette
(in English)

Re-watch Comments

I like this film. The sorority between the women in the brothel is moving—they are friends and family to each other; they provide each other love and consolation. It shows them in their daily routine—behind the scenes through the day, preparing for the evening, and when they are 'at work'. The scene where they are mourning is beautiful, with each woman mourning both her friend and knowing that it could have been, and may well yet be, them.

The working girls are represented as women who have, at some stage, chosen their profession, even though debts may be keeping them there. The Madame of the brothel is represented as a small business woman and mother, just trying to make a living. The women are trapped in their lives and the most represented emotion in the film is profound boredom.

The use of modern music in the film (Moody Blues' Nights in White Satin), seems a bit strange at first, but feels right when re-watching the movie. 

The modern shot at then end shows a working girl on the street soliciting for clients. She is clearly much more vulnerable than those who work in a brothel and she does not have the sisterhood of fellow working girls to support and protect her. A quick check on Wikipedia tells me that while prostitution is currently legal in France, that brothel-keeping is illegal and that the clients of prostitutes are prosecuted. (Where I live brothels are legal and there is a sex workers' association and, hopefully, that gives more protection to the people who work in that industry.)

The quote from Adèle (in the interview, above) as the brothel being a metaphor for cinema is an insightful one—young women are exploited, chewed up, and discarded with disturbing speed. In other interviews, when referring to nude scenes, she has said that nudity is demanded of actresses, but then they are judged for having done it... 

This film has a real ensemble cast, with no one actress having a substantially greater role than the others. Being part of an ensemble is something that Adèle has continued to do in her career—BPM and Les Ogres being examples of this. Adèle chooses the films to be a part of by meeting with the director and seeing if they are a good fit and that the movie will challenge and extend her—that she will learn from the experience. That, even after having won two César awards, she chooses to be one of an ensemble, and not insist on being "The Star", suggests nice things to me about her.

: )

An article about L'Apollonide & its Filming (with Adèle-related quotes)

• Apollonide—Memories of the Brothel
• "Playing a prostitute, having nude scenes, these are ultimately secondary questions, explains Adèle Haenel, big green eyes and fake tomboy airs. The atmosphere of the filming was a little locker room! the embarrassing side of the relationship with the body was forgotten. This is how I perceived it. Besides, the film remains quite modest, the sex is rather mental. 
• ...Adèle Haenel also insists on the contribution of the actresses to the staging process, "like the background conversations, which were not written. Some scenes were born from the acting of the actors. Bertrand knows what he wants, it is clear. But there were times when we had to fill in the lines, put flesh on what was written. He was not very directive, left us a space of freedom while knowing where he wanted to guide us" 
• ...Without getting into the heart of this debate, Adèle Haenel evokes the way the film looks at her female characters: "The film does not show girls only as objects of desire, but also in their daily work. This generates respect for them."
• ...With her feeling as an actress at the very beginning of her career, Adèle Haenel sums up the adventure of L'Apollonide well: "When I discovered the film, I enjoyed seeing my girlfriends respected and well-filmed. They were their characters but also they, really them."

        https://www.lesinrocks.com/2011/09/25/cinema/actualite-cinema/lapollonide-souvenirs-de-tournage/


Interesting Connections
Xavier Beauvois
The director & actor, Xavier Beauvois plays the role of Jacques, a patron at the brothel. He is significant, as was was chair of the assessment panel for Céline Sciamma's graduation project for her screenwriting course at La Femis. It is Xavier who encouraged Céline to turn her screenplay into a film.

Shooting Stars
In 2012, after this film, Adèle was a winner in the Shooting Stars award, a recognition of Europe's best young actors. Co-starring with her in L'Apollonide were two Shooting Stars alumni—Jasmine Trinca (2007, Italy) and Hafa Herzi (2009, France).

Cesar Promising Actress 2008
In 2008 Adèle was nominated for best promising actress for her role as Floriane in Naissance des Pieuvres, but she lost out to L'Apollonide co-star Hafa Herzi, in La graine et le mulet (The Secret of the Grain).