This is a difficult film to watch, but it offers hope, unlike many of this genre (sexual themes with a message). There is ambiguity, like a trip to the beach by two of the more troubled characters. But in a nutshell, this movie can be watched twice. I was almost to the end before I finally sorted out all the characters and their stories, but the choppy, random scenes did lead to a somewhat saccharine message.
I won't reveal the idea, but it's plain throughout and challenging to see and hear (the city's underbelly gets in the way). Another reviewer complained about the handheld camera and the black and white scenes suddenly switching to color, but I liked it. The city came alive and reminded me of another metropolitan city with grit and wonder, San Francisco. Although, I still can't figure out who was telling the story. The Shanghai Belle, mostly, I guess. But it seemed everyone got to play with the handheld camera and focus on the telling as if they were the protagonist.
Without a doubt, this movie could be rated NC-17, although it will probably come in at an R. But who knows? There is practically everything in there, other than male-on-male sex, although I do seem to remember a smacker some guy planted on another guy. But then, we were off to another camera angle and the black and white Paris skyline with naked ladies in the foreground.
Serious viewers and even some writers should check it out more than once (just close your eyes occasionally). This is creative nonfiction, and if it were a book, it would be a braided essay (which a second viewing should sort out). Still, this is a serious look, if not somewhat voyeuristic, at how 20-somethings (and older women and men) play out their lives in Paris, despite their lot in life. There is violence here, domestic and otherwise, and I nearly got up and walked out during one hateful scene. But despite that, and other examples of sex-gone-wrong, drug addiction, and sadism, there's beauty in "Shanghai Belle." And happy endings, too. I think director Jean-Louis Daniel got it right for the most part.
