Life
Year: 2004
Grade: C+
Country: Spain
Director: Lidon
Reviewdocu-drama about the world’s oldest profession. about 80% of the film uses documentary footage taken from interviews with prostitutes from around the world. this is incorporated into a thin storyline featuring denise richards and daryl hannah. in this way it reminded me of the truly awful “what the bleep do we know?”
richards is an anthropology student (yeah right) and hannah is her neighbor who dabbles in prostitution to pay the bills. richards is conducting interviews with prostitutes as part of her school project and that’s where the footage comes into play. it’s an odd choice because the fictional part of the film is so weak in comparison to the actual footage. it’s almost as if lidon (aka “luna” – the director) didn’t have enough material to make a proper documentary; or perhaps she just wanted to try a new form. either way it doesn’t work very well. richards has some good enough acting in the film, as does hannah, but the story is pretty weak. that said, it is strengthened a bit by the documentary footage which is parallels. essentially, the interviews are powerful but the richards/hannah storyline detracts and distracts from those interviews. fortunately that documentary footage is good enough to make the film worthwhile. it’s filmed somewhat interestingly during the richards voice-over portions.
i think that footage from lidon’s other film is incorporated into the film when hannah is watching tv, but i can’t be sure since i’ve never seen that film.