187 minutes of capitalist hell where desire becomes your cage — and the cage has a price list.
A treatise on love and desire tainted by harsh reality of capitalism, in which submission to the laws of lust-as-commerce is played out by five prostitutes and their pimp, who pits them against one another so that they are incapable of standing up to him collectively.
Direction
Saless's static frames turn exploitation into economic autopsy.
Acting
Ensemble delivers exhaustion as performance, not melodrama.
Production
Brothel set designed as institutional dead zone, not titillation.
Director
Sohrab Shahid Saless
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in West Germany but banned there for years; found its audience in Iran where Saless was lionized as a political filmmaker.
Saless refused close-ups for 90 minutes — forcing you to watch systems, not individuals, until the system finally breaks them into view.
No ratings yet
Sign in to join the discussion — comments are spoiler-gated to your watch progress.
Discussion starters
DE
