Michael Glawogger does for documentary film what Ryszard Kapu? His films condense themes of staggering complexity—economics, labor, sex—into meticulous vignettes of everyday life. In Thailand, women sit patiently on display inside the Fish Tank, a glass room where men can browse before buying.
And in northern Mexico, La Zona is a decaying motel where women catwalk among doorways, sharply silhouetted, vying to catch the eyes of men cruising by in the dark. I recently spoke with Michael Glawogger about the challenges of capturing such a clandestine subculture.
Mother Jones: The locations you filmed pose intense logistical challenges for a documentarian, let alone one who is also taking photographs. How did you balance the two? Michael Glawogger: Mostly I take photographs in times of research. MJ: Did the women respond differently to being photographed than to being filmed? They know about the internet, they know their boyfriend can see them, or their parents, so overcoming those boundaries is very tough.
You know, journalists come and go. But I come 10 times and hang out with them and share stuff. MJ: The film is so lush and cinematic. Is it your ambition as a documentarian to restore beauty to lives that many outsiders might see as ugly? MG: As a filmmaker I cannot make anything beautiful. The working girls do one thing all day: They make themselves pretty. In a way, I had the best makeup artists, hairdressers, and art designers in the world. Being a man brings the perspective of flirtation.
How did their moral attitude towards sex work play into this larger issue? In Mexico and elsewhere, once they get out of these places [brothels] they have a pretty square life. When they think of their religion and their upbringing, they can be very moralistic.
