Painted Angels (1998)

terrible... so disappointed.

disgusting, overrated, pointless

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I remember this film when it came out on VHS in the UK... other people have commented on the gross marketing of the DVD by the American distributors; they are absolutely right! This film is in fact a feminist film (although directed by a man) about prostitution in the old West and the exploitation of, mainly immigrant, women. The way it deals with the "work" reminded me of "Working Girls", Lizzie Borden's film about the reality of prostitution. The lives of these women had much in common with those women today from eastern Europe and the third world who are victims of trafficking. The reaction to this film is always going to be mixed... a lot of people prefer the romantic view of prostitutes as "tarts with hearts"... but this is groundbreaking in its treatment of the subject and was probably ahead of its time. What really makes it stand out though is the incredible feel for time and place, the touching camaraderie between the women and the fantastic acting from the cast who all give brave and uncompromising performances. I really hope this film stays "out there".

The film is made in the manner of a dark brooding Scandinavian melodrama and is more of a slice of the darker side of prostitution. I saw it on video by Sterling and they should be shot for the box promotion which indicated more of a sensual sexual randy tale: "Expert in the pleasures of the flesh, these women...put the wild in the west." Obviously the person writing this did not bother to watch the film. On the video cover three saloon dressed typed women were added (none of whom were in the movie) further adding to the false advertising of the film. Yes it is slow and even boring and hardly uplifting, but it is a tale of women trapped in a degrading 'lifestyle.' The nudity in this film is about as titilating as the nudity in Jennifer Connelly's "Requiem for a Dream".

This is the worst movie I have ever seen.Nothing happens in the entire movie and there is nothing to distract you from sitting in the cinema wondering why you have paid money to watch this.I could find no redeemable features for this movie and find it astonishing that this could ever get made never mind released into the cinemas.At least from now on when I am watching a bad movie I'll be able to console myself with the though "At least it isn't Painted Angels"

I just watched this film. It was unrelenting, a story of the rough circumstances prostitutes endured in the West a little more than a century ago. Its a woman's story, almost totally without a male point of view. The men are represented as beings who mostly just mumble and play cards. Their voices are heard often muttering on the soundtrack. We can't make out what they're actually saying. Representing the guys as stick figures helps emphasize in what reduced and lonely circumstances the prostitutes inhabit their dance hall and saloon world. There are no women who are not prostitutes in this early western town. Just as the men have little regard for the women, the women think little of the men. I think this may be a fairly truthful accounting of the West before it was civilized. The film has got me thinking about how desperate male-female relationships may have been in America not all that long ago.--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----