Gigola

Who would have thought that lesbians would behave this way? It’s Paris (oh, the naughty-nice French!) in the 60s and our could-have-been-a-doctor has turned to different internal examinations as the newly-styled Gigola, a woman for hire to invariably infatuated older women. She’s an impressive figure with her monocle and silver-topped sex-toy cane, but what drove her down there? You could blame the suicide of her older lover, a crazy catholic mother and a dissolute father, but what could be more enticing than power and the smell of sex, and a lot more intrigue than can be included here. Based on Charpentier’s own novel (censured by the authorities when it was first published in 1972), beautifully shot and with stylish performances of larger than life figures, it’s pulpy, racy and delightfully camp and captures all the seediness of the Parisian underworld.