This movie is about the life of prostitutes in Morocco. Every fifteen minutes, someone fucks someone. And there are some amazing things about it. The movie, by sheer means of visual storytelling, conveys how prostitutes can be loved, raped and abused, just like anyone else, even when all the three actions, on a physical level, are just sexual acts. You also get to see prostitution as just any job. You see the challenges with this particular job – the boycott by family members and neighbours, feeling of loss of power with powerful clients / police etc. This movie offers a fine, realistic glimpse of the life of prostitutes in Morocco, portraying a very neutral look at their lives. You relate to them on many levels (good days at work, bad days at work, cracking jokes with friends, finding support and solace in friends in times of despair etc.). All the actors are great and look and feel authentic (except the few Europeans – who looked very caricaturish).
Above are the things that I liked, but there are issues with the movie too. There are passages which feel either repetitive or longer than they need to be. As a feature length movie, it falters many a times in the ‘pace’ department. It just keeps randomly slowing down, now and then and that’s some major turn off, for a movie that otherwise has so much visual stimuli to turn you on, quite literally.
PS: I saw Much Loved last night in Goa as part of the International Film Festival of India.