Customer Reviews

Men for Sale

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The concept for "Hommes à louer" ("Men for Sale" 2008) was simple: Set up interviews with Montreal street hustlers, as they came in for services from Action Sero Zero, a community organization providing health care and HIV avoidance counseling for local street people. Where possible, they had follow-up interviews with the same eleven young men, many of them babyfaced and barely out of their teens, all of whom had become hardened street people with various addictions, primarily to crack cocaine. They talk about their backgrounds and experiences, although some contradict themselves in future segments (perhaps intentionally, or a byproduct of the drug use blurring realities.) You also see the changes in their faces and attitudes as the months pass and they get deeper into "the life" and their earlier-expressed goals and dreams tend to fall by the wayside.

This is not an easy film to watch, not just because of its depressing subject matter, but a more practical problem for those who do not understand French. While there are subtitles in English, for both the interviewer's questions and the responses, since almost the entire film consists of that diaglogue (with occasional breaks to show scenes of street life), the viewer must read quickly and continuously for the more than two hours that the film runs, which gets tiring. I found myself pausing the film many times and going back to scenes to see the expressions on the young men's faces, which you lose if you are reading continuously. A sad story, and not really surprising, but perhaps one that needs to be told. Not rated, but would be a light R for subject matter discussed only. DVD has no extras other than chapter stops. I give it four stars out of five.

"Men For Sale" is a harrowing look at about a dozen hustlers over a year's time in Montreal as they come into a clinic known as Sero-Zero. It's a place where they can get health checks and information about AIDS prevention. It's also where documentarian Rodrigue Jean set up his cameras for month-by-month interviews. The over two hour running time adds to the nightmarish aspect of the men's existences.

They live in a constant parade of drugs (Crack, mainly), sex, hustling, fights, and dreams that even they know won't come true. One by one, these young men talk about being in a life that seems like a death wish (some of them repeatedly say they want to commit suicide) or a never ending lurch from score to score. There's scenes of deep denial about their lives, like the one man who is the father to a baby that he thinks he could be a good father for, even as he talks about buying more crack. Some of these men think it's a major achievement in detoxing if they stay off the rock for more than 10 hours.

But then it's right back to the viscous cycle. After awhile, the film becomes almost numbing in it's predictability, repetitive nature, and a serious lack of editing. (Did there really need to be shots of the men getting microphones taped on their chests? Or the transitional shots of Montreal in the dark?) The film is also in French, so you're reading subtitles throughout. With the exception of "Willy," whose face is never fully shown, most of these men are inarticulate, which renders the subtitles into something resembling a news-channel's repetitious lower screen ticker bar.

The story never seems to change. It makes "Men For Sale" a depressing portrait of prostitution and drug use. To the movie's credit, there's no glamorization or teary fake redemption scenes, and plenty of close ups of men beaten both mentally and physically. "I'm 23 and I'm losing my teeth," one of the men grouses. They may be "Men For Sale," but ultimately, they give up whatever value they could have and the DVD refuses to flinch at that fact.

If drugged-out street boys are to your liking, then this is the film for you. But (for this viewer), after 90 minutes of the 145 minutes running time of boring ground-hog day TALKING HEADS it became a waste of breathing time. Interspersed with dark, out-of-focus shots of the radio mikes being stuck onto the interviewees chests, it most probably would appeal to some. One redeeming feature: it is 16x9 anamorphic widescreen.

I was very dissatisfied with this DVD. It mainly depicted the lives of drug-infested low-lifes.

Very Deplorable

Respectfully;

Ralph John Davis, Jr.,