Portrait of an SM prostitute, “Kika” loosens vices – Libération

Her name is Manon Clavel. In 2019, it was not given to everyone, at 27 years old, to play the fictional mother of Catherine Deneuve, in a film entitled the Truth which was all trompe l’oeil, treasure hunt, fictionalized life and film shooting, alternating generations of women, real actresses, false actress-authors. From 7 to 73 years old, the topsy-turvy ages, astride each other, indulged in mischievous and surreal vaudeville. The discreetly beautiful film by Hirokazu Kore-Eda made in France already posed the question: what does it mean to be an actress named Deneuve in the chaos of a trundle study and its variation in the role of a mother, a daughter, a (twin) sister?

Change of scenery, another actress’ film. Another study of a woman, signed Alexe Poukine. Manon Clavel this time plays the main role, the title character: Reading is located in Brussels where, importantly, prostitution is decriminalized. At the beginning, it’s happiness. Kika meets a new love, his name is David. Who dies after twenty minutes. The film mounts this coup in dry ellipses, clumsy jumps in time to hide its arbitrariness (thus leaving death off-screen, and getting rid, neither one nor two, of the two men in Kika’s life in brief, too evasive scenes). But the coup de force is also what justifies, in the story that follows, the twists of fate and the multiple surprises of a film which takes the time, and first of all, to amaze. The fiction that was searching for itself is synchronized with its character, with its rhythm, with its mourning. Figure of mother, daughter, social worker and soon sex worker, Kika is first of all a woman in love caught off guard by this sudden disappearance.

Manon Clavel wears Reading on her shoulders and impressively manages, from “charged” themes (insecurity, mourning, prostitution, sado-masochism), to paint a portrait of a woman on whom nothing weighs. She goes through the film in dull, smiling, anesthetized sorrow. The relationship with Deneuve? It is Beautiful day professional version, of another sordid standing. Alexe Poukine also plays with naturalism, making a film far from the fantasies and racy “bourgeoisie” of Luis Buñuel in 1967. Séverine-Deneuve, dolled up for men, is replaced by a barely made-up actress, her BDSM opposite. The big idea of Reading, in this great casting choice, is to opt for comedy, the incongruous, the subtle look at men. From fabrication to prostitution, from family life to life as a dominatrix, from social work to sex work, it is a story of experimenting with limits and whether or not to get into the game.

Alexe Poukine had also thought of playing the title role, as she had played the lost mother in Palma, his medium-length fiction film. Having signed two documentaries, Without knocking, story in the round of confession of a rape, and Save who canhis play of exchanging roles between caregivers and sufferers in a “hospital” environment, as here between domina and masochistic clients, Poukine has given up playing in the hotel. The filmmaker continues the questions about pretense, the roles to play and what it means to fail in one’s role. His thing, documentary or ass, is thwarted naturalism.

Kika «kicks» therefore, paid domina role. Without knocking, the character enters and exits, opens and closes lots of doors, and goes up and down narrow stairs. His life is steep, like the struggle of finding money and the harshness of the death of a love. Difficulty finding accommodation for her and her daughter. To carry the mats or to see your child lie down on them to show your disagreement. The progressive force of the film, from open space of public service to alcoves hung with red for sex kinky, is to take off from naturalism, to pervert it crescendo, with beautiful supporting roles. Wonderfully, the unhealthy competes with disorder, embarrassment, laughter, with this forbidden air of Kika client after client, from pegging to coprophilia.

Poukin establishes a particular game of truth, through falsehood, as a perverse mirror: the scene in the man with the paraphilia of an adult baby goes far in evoking a taboo – the rape of boys by mothers. Gifted with an extraordinary actress, Reading asks appropriate and inappropriate questions, about cinema and values. Where empathy ends and humiliation begins, the altruistic service and vampirization of the other, the care and sadomasochism. The film is fascinating as a trap and liberation, Kika gets up while collapsing, to hold on, as she grieves, without pouring out her heart. The truth is that if she bursts into tears, it will not be from the blows, but from the caresses.