VIFF 2012 review: Bad Weather

Just the sheer access to this isolated Bangladeshi brothel, precariously perched on a jetty, would have made for a fascinating documentary all its own. But Giovanni Giommi raises it to high art. In a society where women are brutally oppressed, they call the shots with the shiploads of guys that arrive here. It’s a weird kind of community all its own. We meet a husband and wife who empathize with each other’s hard work, and children struggling to go to school. Sweeping tracking shots of their isolated shanties along the water and menacing electronic music add an extra sense of doom. Changing weather patterns mean the brothel may soon get swallowed by the sea. The film is moving, shocking, and as grittily beautiful as the women’s orange and pink saris against the grey sludge of the rising tides.