The Bathers Movie Review

Why just the other day I was commenting to my wife that there weren't enough movies about French peep-show workers. And like that, my prayers are answered, with The Bathers, which takes place almost entirely within a Paris peep show (and the porn shop it also includes).

After introducing us to a half-dozen employees, the film tosses out its story, which has a leering patron obsessing over one of the girls. Why? She looks just like his ex-wife, who he murdered, spending years in jail for the crime. Meanwhile, each peep starlet suffers through her own crisis (one's a drug addict, one has a baby she's trying to raise on the sly inside the peer show, most are just broke) until the zippy 83 minutes of the film are up.

Extremely amateurish, the film is easy to watch but difficult to enjoy, much like your average student film. First-time director Viviane Candas has much to learn about storytelling and basic directorial technique, but she has enough flourishes in the movie to indicate she may be a filmmaker to watch in coming years. With more compelling material and less of a perverse need to dwell on iffy and explicit sexuality, Candas may be a kind of scrappy, Harmony Korine-type that works miracles without money. But for now, The Bathers will probably be remembered solely as an early exercise in learning the ropes of moviemaking.

And by the way, I didn't see much bathing going on.

Aka Les Baigneuses.