The good woman of Bangkok / [directed and produced by Dennis O'Rourke].

Format:

Video

Contributor:

O'Rourke, Dennis, director, producer.

Series:

Academic Video Online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prostitutes--Thailand--Bangkok--Drama.

Prostitutes.

Thailand--Bangkok.

Thailand.

Genre:

Documentary films.

Feature films.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (82 minutes)

Place of Publication:

Cairns, Queensland : Camerawork Pty, 1991.

Language Note:

In English.

Original language in English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

The Good Woman of Bangkok is a no-holds-barred look at the profession of prostitution and is filmed by legendary documentarist Dennis O'Rourke. He turns the camera on a young woman named Aoi, who allows O'Rourke to both film her and be her paid lover, in one of the most personal and multi-layered documentaries of O'Rourke's canon. Born in a small Thai village and responsible to support her family, Aoi was drawn to prostitution as a source of income. Her career choice has an undeniable impact on her self-esteem and her outlook on life and love, and she candidly addresses both, lending the documentary a raw and authentic voice. O'Rourke is never seen on camera, but is the voice interviewing Aoi through the film, and she addresses him on-screen many times, adding a complex layer not typically seen in documentary film. Further blurring the lines of documentarist and participant, O'Rourke offers to buy her family farm, freeing her from the economic necessity to prostitute herself, but in a postscript to the film, O'Rourke returns a year later, and Aoi is still working in a massage parlor, denying herself and the film of a Hollywood happy ending. O'Rourke himself described the film as "... a metaphor for capitalism, here played out across the borders of race and culture, and about prostitution as a metaphor for all relations between men and women." He addressed his involvement in the film by saying, "I have exposed myself in order to force the audience to reconsider the whole nature of documentary film practice. Under the thrall of our separate desires, we are all implicated in some way."

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed September 24, 2015).

OCLC:

925846008