Whores' Glory introduction and post-screening discussion with David Pendleton and Michael Glawogger.

Transcript

For more interviews and talks, visit the Harvard Film Archive Visiting Artists Collection page.

John Quackenbush  0:00  

April 13,  2012, the Harvard Film Archive screened Whores’ Glory. This is the audio recording of the introduction and the Q&A that followed, participating are HFA programmer David Pendleton, and filmmaker Michael Glawogger.

David Pendleton  0:16  

Good evening, folks. Please take your seats. I'm David Pendleton. I’m the programmer of the Harvard Film Archive. And on behalf of the Archive, I want to thank all of you for coming to tonight's screening which kicks off a weekend of films by the remarkable Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger, who is immediately to my left at the moment. And it’s also the local premiere of his newest film Whore’s Glory from 2011.

I'm just gonna start with a couple of announcements. If you have anything under that makes any noise or sheds any light, any electronic devices, please turn them off. And please leave them off until you exit the theater after the screening.

I also want to give a special thanks to our partners in this endeavor. This program is being presented with help from The DocYard, and with additional support from Harvard's Sensory Ethnography lab and Film Study Center. The DocYard—for those of you who don't know—is a non-fiction screening series that brings inspiring and innovative documentary cinema to Boston audiences. Their screenings take place at the Brattle Theatre—just across the yard here in Harvard Square—on select Mondays. This year, they received a special citation from the Boston Society of Film Critics because they've been doing some really great and exciting film programming, part of the burgeoning film scene here in Boston and Cambridge. And their next screening is this Monday at 8pm, a film called Marathon Boy.

Also tonight, following the conversation after the film, there'll be a reception at Grafton Street that you're all invited to—sponsored by The DocYard. There'll be a cash bar and food provided. For those of you who don't know, Grafton Street is at 1230 Massachusetts Avenue, right down there at the corner where Bow Street and Mass Ave. meet, next to Hong Kong. Sean Flynn from The DocYard is away shooting in India and Sara Archambault will be joining us later. Ben Fowlie is here. Ben, we want to say “thank you” to you if you want to stand up and take a bow... Ben? Or maybe he's not in here... Oh, there he is! He’s being very shy. [APPLAUSE]

So Whore’s Glory is often referred to as the third film that completes a remarkable and provocative trilogy of documentary films by Michael Galwogger that began with Megacities in 1998, and continued with Working Man's Death in 2005. And those are the three films that we'll be showing this weekend each night at 7pm—with Michael here for each screening—going in reverse order. The films are often characterized as a Trilogy of Globalization, because of the method of each film, which is to trace similarities and differences in the taking place of everyday life, especially surrounding work—and sex—in a variety of places around the world, with each film jumping from place to place. I also am happy to announce a last-minute addition to the program: tomorrow night, before Working Man's Death, We will be showing Michael Glawogger’s short film Haiku.

So just a few words about the film that we're going to... It seems that a major hallmark of the films in the trilogy to me is the Michael being drawn to liminal or marginal conditions, to those places where public and private, work and sex, reality and performance, even fact and fiction, confront each other or overlap. And I think you'll see that at work in this film, which is a triptych, a triptych to end a trilogy, a look at prostitution in three different countries and three different contexts. The film, I think, is remarkable for the way it walks a tightrope, neither glamorizing nor whitewashing the subjects nor is it sensationalizing. At the same time, it doesn't tell you what to think. And so as a spectator, you're constantly confronted with situations where you're constantly forced to confront your own motives, and feelings while watching. Like all the films in the trilogy, Whores’ Glory can be both grueling and exhilarating, and it arouses complicated and conflicting emotions. And so I'm happy to have here with us to talk about the film, Michael Glawogger.

Michael Glawogger 4:42  

Thank you for this introduction. I have hardly anything to add—only that you're gonna see this so-called globalization trilogy in reverse order, which is a little strange but might be interesting. Also, this trilogy was marked as being the globalization trilogy; I actually hate the word globalization because I don't know what it means. And nobody can really tell me. Actually, I read the word globalization first, when I had the first bad review about the first film Megacities because they said It's a misunderstanding of globalization. And I didn't understand it back then, and I don't understand it now. But maybe the interesting thing about globalization, it's a word that's like a white screen, everybody uses it for what he thinks it is. But it has to do with the whole world. So my films take place on the whole world. So maybe that's why they use it.

The other thing is that the films are debated mostly only in love and hate terms. When I showed first Megacities, there was a big article in a Dutch newspaper, one page against it, one page for it. So that sort of kept on going through the years. And in the latest film that you're gonna see tonight, an Austrian film critic was throwing the words of Adorno at me, which I tried to translate, which sort of, say, there is no right life in the wrong. I think what Adorno meant is if the society’s rotten, there is no right life that you can live there. And I'm very thankful for this quote, because I think the extreme opposite is true, and that's what my movies are about: that whatever life is, there is a right way to live it. And there is a strong and powerful way to live it, and many times the protagonists in my films, sort of show how that works. So when people find it sometimes depressing to watch it, for me, it's always the opposite, because the people I show in my films gave me more strength than anything else I ever experienced in life. So this is what I have to offer the next three days. So thank you for coming.

[APPLAUSE]

John Quackenbush  7:39  

And now David Pendleton

David Pendleton  7:43  

We’ll have audience microphones for questions from the audience. Maybe I'll start by asking you just one or two questions to get the conversation going. Maybe very simply, do you want to talk about what made you decide to make a film about prostitution?

Michael Glawogger  7:59  

The answer is probably strange for you, because we will be showing this trilogy backwards. So it was more like if you call the earlier films your earlier children, they were starting to ask questions. In Megacities, there is a four-minute sequence of a stripper in Mexico City, and that was one of the most discussed sequences of the film. I have this concept that I think that for me, the most important thing is that I find a location or a place or a situation that in the heads of my viewers, also in the heads of myself, make a knot because you don't know what to think about it anymore. You don't know what it means in a sense that you don't know who is the victim? Who is the oppressor? Who is in charge of the situation? Is it religious? Is it sexual? So this kind of situation, that pose more questions than they give answers are, for me, the most constructive things in terms of filmmaking, because it opens up things in your head that really mean something that cinema can do. Like if you come back tomorrow, there will be a sequence in a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, where you see twenty minutes of animals being killed, and the whole thing is beautiful. So that's what I mean with a knot in your head. You look at that and you think this is pure torture. This is horrible, but at the same time, you cannot put your eyes off because there's a beauty in that. And if you have that kind of thing, where you don't know where your intellect goes, where your feeling goes, where your eyes go, because you cannot determine that kind of moment in very strict terms and say, that's what it is. It's horrible. You think, Oh, this is horrible. But all the people who work there, they feel exhilarated, they feel good about their work, and it looks beautiful. So you don't know what to make of it. And I think that’s what art, in a pure sense, should actually do: to leave you out of the theater with [those] kind of mixed feelings or questions about the world, because then it gets essential.

David Pendleton  10:52  

I mean, Working Man's Death, which we'll be seeing tomorrow is about places of work and people working. But we see almost all men as opposed to in this film, where we see women at work. And I was wondering if this film is, in some ways, meant as a counterpart to that film. And I'm also wondering about why all the prostitutes are women and there's no scenes really, of male prostitution, for instance.

Michael Glawogger  11:23  

I'm not very issue driven. I concentrate on one thing, you know. If you start making a film about the rich and the poor, the [?ten?] here, the theme there, then you get irrelevant. I think you have to focus on one thing. I think this film is more about sexuality and religion than it maybe is about prostitution. And I had the theory in the beginning of the film, that I thought that prostitution is just another way of dealing with sex. And, in any given culture, the prostitution shows how the dealing with sex is done. In the whole society, it only goes a little faster. So I think that actually the film shows that that works, that how in different cultures that it's done, so Catholicism treats sexuality differently than Buddhism and, also in Islamic countries it’s treated differently. I think, also, in the only sex scene in this film, you see more of power structures, then you see of pure sexuality. So it's only on the surface a film about prostitution, like, also Megaciteies is maybe only on the surface of film about big cities. So it's more that all my films are more driven around la condition of men: who are we? What kind of animals are we? And I'm much more interested in that than putting forth the issue of prostitution, like lots of people ask me, “Do you do you think prostitution is good or bad?’ And I said, “That's not a relevant question. Prostitution is, and always will be.”

David Pendleton  13:27  

I’m wondering about your choice of the three different settings that we see. I mean, I know that you've mentioned that for one thing, the three different countries, it's three different religious contexts: Buddhist for Thailand, and then Islam in Bangladesh, and then Catholicism in Mexico. But it also seems like we seet three very different kinds of spaces. In other words, the fish tank is very sort of clean, sleek, modern looking space where there's a lot about seeing and being seen or watching and being watched because of the glass there. Whereas the City of Joy is all about these sort of very cramped, crowded corridors. And then by the time we get to Reynosa and Mexico, it's all this very marginal space. There's all these thresholds with small rooms on the one hand, and then what seems to be the sort of vast wilderness on the other hand, and I'm wondering, to what extent– [Were] the differing visual aspects of these places part of the appeal of choosing the three different places?

Michael Glawogger  14:32  

Yes, I always need the location. I mean, I think filmmaking is about showing things. Filmmaking is not a written essay. It's not political in that sense that you're an activist and that you want to put forth an issue. I want to show something and for showing something I need a world where I can show things. Like the first place, it's very clear there is a man in the dark, the woman in the light, the glass in between. And of course, then, if you are a filmmaker—even if you renovate your own apartment, you know, when something's in the dark and something in the light, the glass becomes a mirror. So that's a speaking, location way. Without the word being spoken, you know a lot; the men want to be hidden, the women want to be exposed because they sell themselves. And in that moment, the glass becomes a mirror. So that's a very outspoken situation. And I'm looking for things like that, because I think that's what filmmaking is about. And that's what I need to get my filmmaking across—that the location also speaks for itself. Like Bangladesh is this incredible labyrinth, where each door you open, it's like a new world where you look in where somebody lives, where he has his privacy, and also his non-privacy, because all the customers coming into there. And in Mexico, you have this driving situation that America invented—where you can choose from your car.

But actually, these three places are all deeply rooted in their societies. Like the Mexican place goes back to a time when the men would come in there with horses and lasso the girls, I mean, it's incredible to think of that, but it's really that old. And also, the Thai prostitution is very, very rooted into society, because Thailand is pretty much known for its foreign prostitues, which is a very small, limited part of that. But this goes back, like… Whether they pretended that the prostitution is about massage, and the numbers of the girls and the colors were in the old times only for the kind of massage you would take. So there's always like this [front], like here in America, you call it escort service, or whatever, and you're not allowed to ask for what you want to ask. But you get what you get where you always get it.

David Pendleton  17:23  

But it seemed like actually, a lot of the clients at the Fish Tank in Bangkok were foreigners. Not all of them, but…

Michael Glawogger  17:29  

No, there are some. They were expatriates. Those are people who know, but actually…

David Pendleton

I see. You’re saying they’re not tourists. They’re people who live...

Michael Glawogger

No, no. They wouldn’t go that kind of place. They go to totally different areas.

David Pendleton  17:43  

I see. I see.

Also can you talk a little bit about the sex scene, which you mentioned briefly, both the decision to include a scene like that and who are those people? Who are the people in the scene and how much of that was your direction? How much of that was decided upon with the two of them? The scene in Mexico at the end?

Michael Glawogger  18:06  

Well, actually, after doing this film for such a long time, I was getting frustrated because you’re making a film about sex and everybody thinks it’s so elegant to not include it. And I thought that it's sort of getting boring for me to always have the doors closed in your face. Actually, I never thought I would include the scene in the film because I thought I'm only doing it for myself. Because in the end, I could say I tried it because it's gonna be so uninteresting. But it was in the end not uninteresting for me because it was not about sex. It was about change of power structures. It's like the same pattern of when men make a big fuss in the pub, but when they get home the power structure changes and here it's the same thing. I mean, the moment the flirtatious part is over and the door closes, the girl is in charge here. And she's in charge in a very strange way and she sets the parameters of how this whole thing works. And that was interesting for me and I didn't really expect it because I talked to this woman and I said “Brenda, I have this problem. I'm doing this film now for three years and I want to include this. You pick a customer and you can do whatever you like.” But as with documentary filmmaking, always I say there is a power of reality. Like when this woman Brenda, she does the same thing every day three, four, ten times, so I don't have to give her directions. I say “Pick a customer with whom you feel comfortable and do it.” I wasn't even in the room. So everything that happened happened out of her habits, like she does it all the time. And that's why it's so authentic or—because it's a very small room with a big camera and the boom guy you [think] it cannot be authentic, but it can because the people are so used to what they do that they cannot do otherwise, but doing it as they normally do it. And that's why it comes across so smoothly.

And lots of people ask me, “Why didn't you do it in Bangladesh? Why didn't you do it in Thailand?” There's always easy reasons for that because in Bangladesh, it would be a very rude thing to do. Those girls, they don't even undress for the customers. It would overstep so many borders that my mother called me and said, “I told you to be a polite man. Don't do stuff like that.” And, and in Thailand, every girl would do it. But there I have a very strong censorship in my neck. Because the king of Thailand says there is no prostitution in Thailand. So it's very hard to even find out or get permission for filming for something that doesn't exist. It's a very interesting catch-22. It took me like three years to get this application through for something that doesn't exist. And when it doesn't exist, you're not supposed to film certain things. So it's always in this world or in this “globalized” world, there's different rules in different places.

David Pendleton  21:46  

To some extent there's a kind of a return to some similar locations similar to those used in Megacities, because you start in Mexico City for Megacities you shot in Mumbai for Megacities. Going back to southern Asia, going back to Mexico, was it easier for you then to get even more intimate with what you're doing given that these are places similar to places you’ve shot before?

Michael Glawogger  22:13  

No, it's not about easy. It's like with each film, you start someplace and then you find a sort of pattern. It was for me strange that I always went back to the subcontinent. But in a way, I have the feeling that the subcontinent is sort of an outlook to the future of humankind, because there is so many people and the density of people in a certain space is something that I think will be the crucial thing on this planet. I mean, now we are talking about so many issues about the ozone layer, about the sea, the overfishing, the Amazon, the trees, the woods. But I think the main problem is that we are getting too many people. And all these problems come from that we hardly can handle how many people we get—like the whole issue of how we subsidize people who are on pension in Europe and how we don't want to let foreigners in. It's getting more and more crucial, because we're getting so many people and the subcontinent already had that problem forever. Like if you go to Bangladesh, it's like this [GESTURES]—something is touching you all the time because there's so many people. And in a way, I was always interested in that area, because I think it's an outlook to the future more than an outlook to the past as it sometimes seems.

David Pendleton  23:57  

Yes, we'll take questions from the audience. If you can just wait til... Do we have our audience mics? Sure, Steven there's a woman right here. Raise your hand so that Steven can see you, and then ask your question into the mic so we can all hear.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE QUESTION]

Michael Glawogger  24:55  

I think there is tradition in documentary that you could call... one character stands for the rest of them all. And I totally disagree with that. So that's a very conscious decision, because I could easily have followed one girl in Bangladesh, and make you cry about her fate and about her living situations, but it would have been one girl out of 600. And I think that tells nothing. It's just an easy way to make cinema something emotional in a very traditional reportage kind of way. I actually despise these methods. If I have 600 girls, I [feel like I still] show too little. I’d rather get a glimpse of many than a fake truth of one.

David Pendleton  26:10  

Other questions in the audience?

Okay, yes, let's go to you, then. Hang on, we'll get you a mic.

Go ahead. wWe'll repeat the question if we can’t–

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE COMMENTS]

David Pendleton

The question was: how did you get access to these people?

Michael Glawogger  26:41  

In these areas, there are three layers of access, because they don't want you there. I mean, there is places like the Vatican where you never get access, or you could also not make a film about the White House in a sense. But brothels are also a place where you're not welcome. The country doesn't want you, the mafia doesn't want you and the girls don't want you. Because, you know, there are so many reporters who go into a brothel and they say a little thing about what they think, and they just run over it. And the country is not proud of their brothels, and the mafia doesn't care if you don't have money. So it was always a three step approach for me: I had to get permission to shoot in the country, I had to make a deal with the mafia. And after I did that, I had to fight with the girls about what I'm doing here. And this took four months, because even if the mafia agreed, and if I paid my pay, the girls would have to say “yes.” And they are their own bosses in many ways. So if they don't want to be filmed, they don't want to be filmed. So the access there was a very personal story. So there [are] many layers in the answer to that question.

David Pendleton  28:16  

Yes, Adam has a question. Dan will pass you a mic from the left.

Audience 1  28:21  

As sort of a follow up to the last one, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about getting permission from the clients.

Michael Glawogger  28:30  

That was a surprise for me, because I actually when I began to make that film, I thought that will never be possible, because the clients will be afraid of their families. And on the other hand, you know, the girls are afraid of their families too. And not all the girls participated in the film. But when I stayed in these places for so long, the method in that kind of filmmaking is to come back. When you're not that kind of journalist who takes photos and the next day, it's in the newspaper, and the journalists say, “Oh my god, they're all victims! Oh my God, these poor girls,” and the girls hate that.

So when you don't do that, and you come back, and you come back for a month, and you come back after a year, they finally ask you, “What the fuck are you doing here?” [LAUGHTER] “What do you want?” And then you explain and say “I’m making this artistic documentary,” and they say, “Fuck your art” and “What is this?” And finally, they understand you want to really know about them. I always told them, “This is the stage for you. You can say whatever I want. I will say no word. It's your movie, not mine.” They understood that and they grabbed the idea. And so actually the customers in the girls they talk because the regulars, they're in love with the girls. They come because they like it there.

So when they finally realized this movie is serious about that they can say what they want to say, they would come up to me and say “I want to say something too.” So there [are] a lot of customers who would never do that, because they don't want to offend their wife or their family situation. But it's as many girls who won’t want to do that. So the people who take my offer, they take my offer. And that's almost a question of your own persistence and your own truthfulness in what you say to them. If, for one reason, I would have printed a photo that I did during research in the newspaper or on the internet, I would never be able to do that. And also I promised all these girls in your country, “No way unless you say, ‘okay.’” The Mexican girls don't care; I can show the film in Mexico, but I cannot show the film in Thailand or in Bangladesh, because that was a promise.

David Pendleton  31:00  

And how many of the people in the film have seen the film?

Michael Glawogger  31:04  

They have seen the film, because there was also a promise, I would go back to all the places and show the women the film.

David Pendleton  31:13  

Hang on… Steven, hand her a mic. Hopefully it works. Sure, go ahead.

Audience 2  31:18  

Can you say something about the title?

Michael Glawogger  31:22  

There's two things to the title... I normally try to wash myself clean of everything, and I sort of know about the thing. Like prostitution is especially a thing everybody has an opinion about. And nobody has ever been to a brothel—especially those people who have been to a brothel. So I said to myself, the only thing you have to take into account is keep your respect for the women. That's one part of the title. And the other part of the title is that I have—almost a friend—a writer in America that I really like. And his work is very close to mine. And his name is William T. Vollmann. And he wrote a book called Whores for Gloria. And this title is sort of an homage or a reference to this book.

David Pendleton  32:22  

Although, you know, I mean, the word whore is in some ways, a very sort of provocative word–

Michael Glawogger

No, it’s not provocative–

David Pendleton

–at least in English.

Michael Glawogger 32:26  

Yeah, it's provocative in German, too. But what is provocative in [not using] everything that is [not] PC? I mean, if I called this film Sex Workers’ Glory, the girls would crucify me. They would say, I ruined their job, you know. I mean, I'm not a forum for an activist group. I'm a filmmaker. So… they’re whores, come on.

David Pendleton  32:59  

Other questions? Yes, Ann in the front has a question. Here...

Audience 3  33:05  

What language did you work in?

Michael Glawogger

I always have people with me. That is sort of the hardest job for me to find these people who are translators. It's a tricky question, because it's very hard to find these people. Like in Bangladesh, for example, somebody who speaks English or German is normally [very highly educated], so he would not be very comfortable in a place like that. And the girls would not like him very much, because the caste system would not allow them to like such a person. So it takes me a long time to find somebody who speaks languages, and can relate to normal people.

Also, like in Thailand, it's sometimes easier, but then the girls inside the Fish Tank, there are sometimes Burmese or they come from the north of Thailand. So you find somebody who can relate to the girls, but then he doesn't speak all the languages. So that's always a real dance to find these people who can also relate to my method of working, because I do not do this kind of on-the-spot interviews. I don't confront people. I take a long time in the research where I find out about the people and then at the right moment during filming, I have my assistant throwing questions at them, but there I never interfere. Because I just have to throw the right questions. And whatever they say, they say. What they really say, I find out at the editing table. I do not force in any kind of direction. I just try during the process of finding out about them to get to know a lot about them [so] that I ask the right question at the right moment.

David Pendleton  35:20  

Other questions? Or there's another question here up front. So just go ahead and tell me real fast and I’ll repeat it.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE QUESTION]

Michael Glawogger  35:49  

It's shot on film. And it's shot on Arriflex. Super 16.

David Pendleton  35:58  

Which is what all of the trilogy is shot on...

Michael Glawogger  36:00  

Yeah, all these films are shot in the same method.

David Pendleton  36:07  

Go ahead, Dan. Dan has a question.

Dan Kearney  36:09  

I was wondering if you were ever, at any point, scared for yourself or your crew or dealing with the mafia or any sort of overt violence that you ran into in the whole time you were there, in the different places?

Michael Glawogger  36:22  

No, actually, the mafia was a good partner. Actually, one of the best I've ever had. It was a straight fair deal. They watched my movies before they agreed. They discussed it with me, they set a price, they kept to the promises. And on the last day of shooting in Mexico, my production manager was going with the mafia boss to the mayor's office; he had a key for that. He would open the office and sign a paper with like the amount for location rental. So we even could give it to the Austrian [funders], so they were good partners. And also, we didn't have to lock out equipment, because everybody knew we were mafia.

[LAUGHTER]

David Pendleton  37:15  

When you say “mafia,” were you working with organized crime figures in all three locations?

Michael Glawogger  37:20  

No, no, no, in Bangladesh, there’s a female society within the male society. Mothers, you see, here that's the top end. Those women, they control the place and they set the price and you deal with them. In Mexico, that's the real stuff. That's the Zetas, that's people who do the drug war. That's the real bad guys.

David Pendleton  37:45  

Reynosa is actually sort of– If you look on Google, for instance, I mean, the first thing that comes up is how Reynosa is controlled by the Zetas.

Michael Glawogger 37:52  

We dealt with them, those other guys.

David Pendleton  37:56  

And did you ever consider including– Was it at all possible even to include their presence?

Michael Glawogger  38:01  

No, they wouldn't want that and you don't do anything they wouldn't want. [LAUGHTER] It's a bad idea.

David Pendleton  38:09  

Yes, there's a question here.

Audience 4  38:13  

Why do you have all the wacky music?

Michael Glawogger

Sorry?

Audience 4

Why did you have all the music? And how do you pick it?

Michael Glawogger  38:20  

It came along with the whole process of what prostitution is about. If you asked me what's prostitution about, I would say “waiting.” The girls do actually nothing much—[except on] the [slim] chance they have a date, or [the big] chance they have a date—but waiting around and listening to music. So I did the same during [UNKNOWN]. So in a way, it reflects a dialogue between me and them because they were listening to their music, I was listening to my music. And it was funny, because the music is sometimes criticized by people, but the girls love the music. They understood completely why it's there. They say it's sort of the glue in the boredom. [LAUGHS] And I think that has to be. I would be ashamed to make a film about prostitution without music. It's something that really makes their day; otherwise…. And also, it works as a commentary for myself. Like I wrote tons of commentary for this film, because I tried it out to have a commentary and I put it away and I said, “The music is enough.” 

Actually in the beginning, I was dealing with PJ Harvey to do the whole soundtrack of the film. But the stuff that worked for me was music she wrote in the 90s, and now she moved away… she's doing more conceptual work, and you cannot turn an artist back to the moment when she wrote something. So she herself suggested to take her stuff from the 90s and use it there. So that's how it happened. And in the beginning, we only tried to use female songs, like powerful female love songs. And to go back to the other question, the more the customers came in as voices, we also used duets. But there is not one single song in there that's only sung by men.

David Pendleton  40:39  

And to what extent were the lyrics important to you? I mean, I know that the Tricky song near the beginning, for instance, is talking a lot about race in interesting ways, which is kind of a sub-theme in some of the films.

Michael Glawogger 40:46  

Yeah, there is different layers to that, like the last song that's over the final credits is after a poem that I wrote when I was in Bangladesh, and it was transferred into a song, so there's many layers in these duets. And I know that for some people, this kind of use of music in documentary filmmaking is a no-no. I don't care.

[INAUDIBLE AUDIENCE COMMENT]

Michael Glawogger  41:19  

Yeah, that's okay. You sometimes listen to old music. You know, I'm totally aware that this is a dangerous thing, because then you use a CocoRosie song and somebody [sitting] in the audience he kissed his girlfriend when he heard the song underneath is totally out of place here. With no music, you run that risk. But I like to run that risk, because that's what happens. You know, like also the Bollywood songs… When you show it on the subcontinent, the bollywood songs… Like there's one Bollywood song in there that a girl listens to and the artist, I had to negotiate with her for half a year because she wouldn't want to have this music in that surrounding. And I said to her, “Listen, they all listen to your music! These girls adore you. You make their day.” And finally, she was convinced that it can be used, but it was almost a disgrace for her.

It's also like PJ Harvey, she sings about whores so much, and calls herself a whore and her emotional suffering. But when she sees it with the bare reality of this, she's like, at the moment, oh, my God, you know? Because the word “whore” or the red-light district and all that, is so tempting for a lot of people, but nobody has ever been there in a way. It's when you see the harsh reality connected with what you're playing with, it [gets] interesting. I think there is an interesting tension between the music and the images. You can take it both ways; it can turn you off, it can evoke something. It's a risky thing.

David Pendleton  43:10  

It seems like often in your work too, you're sort of playing with some of the conventions, sometimes, of fictional filmmaking. I mean, are there other ways in terms of like the use of the lighting, etc. in this film besides the music?

Michael Glawogger  43:20  

I don't light. That's something I have to say I never liked. We exchange lightbulbs and we change neons and stuff, but we don't light.

David Pendleton  43:34  

Are there other questions in the audience? Thinking about it...

Was there ever a situation where you felt tempted to intervene on behalf of one of the women in the film?

Michael Glawogger  43:53  

Yes, and no. I mean, if I want to save people, I should not be a filmmaker. I cannot take 150 women from Bangladesh to my house. My wife wouldn't like that. [LAUGHTER] And, I'm also neither an activist nor am I a politician or a policeman, I'm a filmmaker. And you cannot start with that. That's a very wrong concept. If you have that kind of concept, you shouldn't do the work I do. But I keep a lot of relationships with the people, like from Megacities, which was shown in 1996. I'm still the godfather of the child of a stripper and I go to Mexico City every year to buy clothes and shoes for the kid. But it's just because I liked the woman and I became friends with her, but I'm not a kind of a social activist. I'm the total opposite. I think social activists shouldn't make movies.

David Pendleton  44:57  

Fair enough. Alright, well, if there are no more questions, I’ll close by reminding you that Michael will be here tomorrow for Working Man's Death and Sunday for Megacities. And also, thanks to The DocYard, there is a reception starting in a few minutes at Grafton Street down the street and I hope you'll join us there. Thank you very much, Michael.

Michael Glawogger  45:14  

Thanks for coming.

[APPLAUSE]
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