Director's Cut / Tran Anh Hung on Street of Shame

Mizoguchi begins his last film, Street of Shame, by introducing the prostitutes. It's magnificent! Take the sequence where he presents the most intelligent prostitute, the one who will become rich, using her charm to take money from men. It starts with the arrival of a mattress-maker delivering some blankets to the brothel. He goes to the madame who gives him money, and as he's leaving, this woman comes down the staircase. He calls her over and says, "I'd like to be with you tonight." The woman s ays, "Yes, perhaps, why not?" and then tells him that her brother is ill. The man gives her some money, thinking they'll meet again. He goes off, and we follow the woman upstairs, where she extracts more money from a man who is waiting in her room. This is thefirst time we see that she already had a man with her. Suddenly, you understand everything about her.

n Tran Anh Hung's first film, `The Scent of Green Papaya' (Artificial Eye), has won the Camera d'Or and the Sutherland Prize for Best First Feature.