I never planned to find competent filmmaking in a feature titled "The Hookers". Like all pregnancies, it just sort of happened. To go in expecting such is a fool's errand, but one purpose of this blog is to discover merit within the trash; talent within the titty-flick (or sex-scare-flick, rape-revenge--illicit-abortion-flick, etc.
). An awkward white non-actor non-acts through a curious attempt to convince his black female co-worker Callie Sue to have a drink with him. Despite being far out of his league she agrees, though once this man brings over a bottle of schnapps from his desk drawer Callie realizes his innate fear of being seen with a "pretty negro" despite his claims that "it wouldn't bother [him] but the local bars are so crowded and [he] knows what it's like being picked on". This exchange, I must add, is shot as flatly as a 50's educational hygiene film featuring Ed Wood's signature triple shadows and blank, textureless walls.
But then as if a bear trap's teeth sprung into our neck due simply to complacency, we are thrust into a flashback to see Callie Sue's childhood on a farm. She strolls through a corn field while Ben and Leroy, two white men, drool over the prospect of gettin' some "dark meat" while swiggin' moonshine and being stereotypical southern rednecks from a 60's exploitation film. But what makes this work is how goddamned creepy these dirtbags act mixed with a sudden visual panache. High contrast, deep focus photography framing a distant Callie Sue between the sexually disgruntled duo as their plan for forcible entry is hatched works far better than a film of this kind deserves. As they begin to taunt the poor lass, forcing her to chug from their flask and heaving insults about her race and her sister ("Peggy went to a fancy college up north, didn't she? Ain't she a real snooty high class nigger Callie Sue?") they are looking directly into the camera forcing the audience to reap the abuse.
Eventually the two chase Callie Sue through the cornfield in a furious hand-held-cam sequence that ends with the rape of our young heroine. Now the acting is a bit over the top, to be expected in such a film, but the threatening repugnance of the southern scum is palpable as their sleaze oozes through the screen. Some could call this degrading of Callie Sue unnecessary or bordering on misogyny; pure sensationalism appealing to the prurient interest of moviegoers looking for a "roughie". While that may be true in similar films of this ilk I would argue that by being so disgusting the scene extinguishes any accusations of the aforementioned traits. Nothing about this is attractive and I doubt any audience member leaves this film pining for the day they too can assault a young girl in a cornfield. If sexual assault is made to seem terrible, then a positive goal is achieved even if it falls in the middle of a trashy skin-flick (though in the case of today's subject, breasts rarely make an appearance.) It's for this same reason that those screaming about Gaspar Noe being anti-female due to the brutal 10 minute single-take rape in Irreversible are complete fools.
But this is The Hookers, so I feel compelled to ponder the following about this flashback: WHERE IN THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM!? I cannot accept that director Jalo Miklos Horthy (with no other credits to his fantastic name according to the one Internet I searched) had this single stylistic flourish on his palette while the rest of this film was left bereft of flair and creativity. It's possible his usual cinematographer was hung over that day and they called in, oh, lets say Vilmos Zsigmond to cover. He was known to take uncredited work on exploitation fare after all.
Anyhow there is a whole movie here, and it's enjoyable, albeit with diminishing returns after opening with gusto. It's not so much about what hookers do (exchange sex for money!) but how three women became proficient in hump-for-hire hijinks. Less a single feature than three short films stitched together, with interstitial segments formed out of sloppy stock footage of the New York City skyline during which an omniscient Sterling Hayden-ish voice pummels us with reasons why hookers are bad people. After Callie Sue we have Julie whose boyfriend sends her on a job interview to an immensely entertaining, OCD-infected "Big Time Producer" and asks her to be "extremely nice" to him MAKING HER A HOOKER! Finally we have Barbara, a bored housewife who pays back a debt to a loan shark WITH SEX! MAKING HER A HOOKER! The final scene anticipates the finale of Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry 30 years early. The director yells "cut!", the loan shark and Barbara untangle from the bed to exit the frame, and the audience understands that this is all just fiction and hookers are not real.
You NEED this one.
Side Note: Having just sat in awe of Bela Tarr's swan song The Turin Horse at NYFF, I lay claim to being the only person on the planet to view a Tarr film and discuss The Hookers in the same day.