Dream World: The Biggest Brothel (2010) User Reviews

Brothel documentary

[london-river · 3/10 · 13 June 2010]

This film takes place in a huge brothel in Cologne. The Swedish filmmaker has an intense dislike for prostitution as is taught from a young age in Sweden. He talks to prostitutes, customers, management. All the people that are interviewed are very honest and tries to answer the sometimes very odd and strange questions to the best of their ability. The filmmaker is trying to persuade almost everyone that is interviewed that sex for money is bad. He films himself as he tries to show how disgusted he is of what takes place. This takes away from the documentary. After listening to the filmmaker for 5 minutes I'm irritated in the way he puts himself on a pedestal and puts everyone else down. Interesting topic but too much focus on the filmmaker.

An Unfinished Examination of the World's Largest Brothel

[JustCuriosity · 7/10 · 19 March 2010]

This Swedish-made film about the world's largest Brothel in Cologne, Germany received its an American premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. While the subject of selling sex is inherently interesting and provocative, the film never really finds its footing. Director Svante Tidholm's attempt to assert himself and his own critical view of prostitution into the film seems a bit ham-handed and moralizing. The interviews often seem to not go very deep in this relatively short film. This problem is in part, because most of them are conducted in English – perhaps to appeal to an American audience - which is not the first language of many of the interviewees and seems to limit their ability to express themselves articulately. One of the prostitutes seems to offer the bizarre and unsubstantiated view that prostitution will reduce the incidence of rape. The interviews with the managers and patrons are often self-serving rather than truly informative. The film does allow us to journey inside and examine the culture of legal prostitution and asks us to consider its morality. The film seems to require a more complicated examination of the economics as well as the social and cultural impact of legal prostitution.

Perhaps some outside commentary by scholars, police, social workers, and/or former prostitutes would have created a more complex and well-rounded picture. This film provides some valuable insights, but it seems to need more editing, focus, and context before it is ready for wide scale release.

It's about something different

[whitruss · 10/10 · 9 April 2011]

This film goes into the depths of a place male patrons call "paradise." It is not a documentary about prostitution, it's legality, or whether "selling sex for money" is "bad." It is about the men who buy women for sex. It shows these men, their attitudes, and brings the film maker into the story as a man reacting to these other men.

Sweden, where the film maker is from, does not criminalize prostitution exactly. Since 1999, it has had an unusual law in which the seller of sex (women) are legal and the buyer of prostituted sex (men) are the criminals. Other countries have followed Sweden in having this model.

As a Swedish film maker, I am not surprised that Tidholm is the only one asking about the ethics of the men buying sex and what their actions say about masculinity. This is what the film is about and there is nothing else like it. It asks questions that other documentaries on the topic of brothels and prostitution don't even think to consider.