Oscar-winning Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line) shocked audiences with her startling 1982 debut, A Question of Silence, in which three ordinary women who had never met before bludgeon a male shopkeeper to death. For Broken Mirrors, her no-less-timid 1984 follow-up, she expands her gaze to incorporate more characters, but her fury at the indignities imposed by patriarchal society has not dimmed by any measure.
Club Happy House, the brothel at the film's center, reflects the experiences of any woman beholden to or controlled by men. Ellen (Katie Tippel's Coby Stunnenberg), the classy-looking madam, explains to Diane (Lineke Rijxman, the narrator of Antonia's Line), a new arrival referred by the seasoned Dora (Henriëtte Tol), that she doesn't allow junkies or minors. If Ellen attends to the women—while seeing the occasional client—the Boss (Johan Leysen) cares more about his profits than his workers.
Though she maintains a cynical veneer, every night Dora stops to chat with a vagrant occupying a nearby caravan. Though he never shows his face, he recites poetry and gives her flowers. He's the one decent man in the film. The most indecent: a trench coat-clad businessman who abducts women. Gorris never shows his face either, though she reveals his identity—and his connection to Club Happy House--at the end (Edda Barends plays his latest victim, a school teacher and mother of two).
If Dora is the ultimate insider, Diane is more like the psychiatrist in A Question of Silence, in which Tol and Barends appear in very different roles. Diane turns to sex work due to her husband's drug addiction. She tells the neighbor who looks after her infant daughter that she works in a bar. About their clients, Dora warns her, "They're all bastards—even the nice ones aren't nice." This proves prophetic as the women meet with several troublesome clients, including one with murderous intentions.
The other workers include Linda (Anke van ’t Hof), Irma (Carla Hardy), Francine (Marijke Veugelers), Jackie (Hedda Oledzky), and Tessa (Arline Renfurm). Each has her own story, and all are Dutch, except UK-born Jackie and Surinam-born Tessa, the only woman of color. They quarrel, but they also have fun. They're like a family in all the best and worst ways. By the end, one will die, one will suffer serious injury, and three will leave. If the men don't treat them with respect, their director always does.
Broken Mirrors appeared the same year as Lizzie Borden's Manhattan-set Working Girls, though Gorris takes a darker approach. It also predicts Bertrand Bonello's 2011 House of Tolerance, which centers on a Parisian bordello that also attracts a knife-wielding client. As with Cult Epics' other Marleen Gorris reissues, Broken Mirrors comes with enlightening extras, including a commentary track from Peter Verstraten and an archival interview with American sex worker Margo St. James.
What film collection does this belong in?
Broken Mirrors belongs in academic and public libraries with other films by Marleen Gorris, like A Question of Silence and The Last Island, all of which have been restored by Cult Epics. The three would fit in international and feminist film collections.
What kind of film series would this movie fit in?
Marleen Gorris's second feature would fit with a film series on Dutch film, her work in particular (which spans both Dutch and English-language titles), and with feminist films of the 1980s, like French filmmaker Agnès Varda's 1985 Vagabond.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Library programming on Dutch culture and sex work would find a stirring addition in Broken Mirrors. Though unrated, librarians should be advised that the film may be inappropriate for some audiences due to nudity and graphic violence.