{"id":11374,"date":"2011-02-14T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-14T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=11374"},"modified":"2011-02-14T19:19:03","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T03:19:03","slug":"gigola-laure-charpentier2010-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=11374","title":{"rendered":"Gigola (Laure Charpentier,2010): France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Linda Sweatt<\/a>. Viewed at the 2011 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I love this film on so many levels! Gigola<\/a>, erotic, elegant and fascinating, has all the makings of a great Hollywood film, only the setting is Paris. The main characters drive around in classic sports cars, eat at fancy French restaurants and live in elaborate upper class homes. In the genre of such movies as Chicago and Burlesque, Gigola is very entertaining with Vaudeville style singing and dancing, yet there\u2019s a twist, the women dancing are dressed like men and they are lesbians. We enter a rarely seen world of erotic lesbianism and\u00a0prostitution .\u00a0The cinematography is beautiful with its treatment of lesbian sexuality.\u00a0Delicately portraying this alternative lifestyle set in the\u00a01950’s, this film tackles so many intense\u00a0issues. While the women are always facing\u00a0 challenges they are\u00a0held together as a big family, supportive\u00a0each other\u00a0through thick and thin, staying strong as a community.<\/p>\n

Gigola, played by fantastically by\u00a0Lou Doillon,\u00a0is a woman who is more gentlemanly than the best gentleman; she is a very suave, handsom\u00a0butch. She wears tailored suits, a top hat and carries a cane while her women are dressed in designer gowns and expensive jewelry. The film is old school, butch and femme, black and white.<\/p>\n

This is a fascinating look at gender roles, very interesting how a woman can enter a mans\u2019 world in a tuxedo, carrying a gun, gambling with a gorgeous woman on her arm. Gigola wins the respect and acceptance of men and women a like. She is often mistaken for a man and treated like a man. Beginning as a\u00a0 high-class prostitute, catering exclusively to the very wealthy older women,\u00a0she ultimately becomes a professional and successful pimp herself. In her role as pimp we at first have the hope that being a woman she may be more kind, but by the end she is also cruel and abusive with her clients, sex workers and beautiful girlfriend. She can\u2019t love because her first true love has died.<\/p>\n

Gigola must deal with intense relationships in her role as daughter without acceptence\u00a0her mother forever tries to pressure into\u00a0conforming.\u00a0Whereas her father is mostly absent,\u00a0 an abusive \u00a0addict always robbing her\u00a0family. She learns to take her own power and create her own path\u00a0earning the admiration from both men and women. Her\u00a0undying love for her first lover, a\u00a0female school teacher who controlled the relationship with her by age and position leads to her own power over all the other women in her life: suppression causes suppression, violence beseeches violence. While the ending is a bit confusing and some might find it disappointing, I for one am happy to see Gigola stay strong and\u00a0stick to her own path of self\u00a0 identity.<\/p>\n

Gigola is definitely my number one personal favorite of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Having lived several years in France and being a lesbian myself might just make me a bit partial, but I think Gigola translates to a very broad audience and is very entertaining so it should be well\u00a0received and successful. Definitely worth seeing what you think for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Linda Sweatt. Viewed at the 2011 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. I love this film on so many levels! Gigola, erotic, elegant and fascinating, has all the makings of a great Hollywood film, only the setting is Paris. The main characters drive around in classic sports cars, eat at fancy French restaurants and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}