Belle de Jour: Mourning Becomes Sex Work in Poukine’s Debut
There’s arguably a slippery slope at work in Alexe Poukine’s narrative debut Kika, a far cry from the zany dark comedy constituting the similarly named titular figure of Almodovar’s 1993 feature. Poukine applies a social realism approach to sex work as an economic necessity for a single mother who upends her comfortable existence and is forced to reinvent herself following an unexpected tragedy. Essentially, like the profession, it’s a tale as old as time, wherein a beautiful young woman must suddenly contend with using her body to make ends meet to support herself or her children, but Poukine circumnavigates the usual tropes to steer a path into what feels like a surprise journey towards self actualization.
Kika (Manon Clavel) is a happily married social worker who seems significantly invested in assisting her wide variety of clients, many on the verge of outright despair. She’s been married to Paul (Thomas Coumans) for years, together raising a young daughter, Louison (Suzanne Elbaz). But one evening, while taking her child’s bike to a repair shop at closing time, she inadvertently locks the entryway, trapping her alongside David (Makita Samba), the shop employee. A strenuous situation becomes a meet cute, and a flirtation leads to a whirlwind romance which dissolves her marriage to Paul. Shortly after becoming pregnant by David, he suddenly dies, leaving her in a financially ruinous situation. Inspired by a client who made money to sell soiled undergarments to men, Kika’s desperation leads her to do the same, soon renting a room at a local love hotel. However, Kika’s unwillingness to engage in certain activities courts the advice of some other sex workers, who direct her to Rasha (Anaël Snoek), a dominatrix willing to show her a thing, or two.
Kika’s circumstances, on paper, resemble the working class prospects of a Dardenne Bros. heroine crossed with Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair – tossing caution to to the wind, she abandons the comforts of a stable marriage to pursue a passionate affair with a man who’s awakened something dormant inside her. Until he suddenly dies and she’s suddenly forced to reinvent herself in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Perhaps the real travesty is how Kika’s chosen profession as a social worker doesn’t pay her cost of living expenses, and so she slowly gets her feet wet in sex work with a sense of resigned despair.
Essentially, Poukine paints a character portrait of a woman who has determined to make it on her own, no matter what. An emotionally estranged relationship with her own cold but curiously sensitive mother explains her staunch resiliency. But Kika is also a woman who is unable to let her guard down, and her inability to entertain vulnerability ends up being the actual character arc, which sets the narrative apart from a horde of films examining women who moonlight as sex workers for various intersecting or parallel reasons. Kika’s slow immersion into selling herself leads to rapport with various women who may joke “a hooker is a social worker with sperm,” but what’s being examined is how the empathy she exudes in her day job disappears when she’s donning her ersatz dominatrix persona. The turning point is through her collaboration with Rasha, an experienced dominatrix who forces Kika to explore the emotional labor often required with clients whose sexual proclivities often lead to surprising moments of vulnerability.
While it’s unclear how Kika’s own eventual emotional evolution will formulate her future, Poukine’s narrative brings us to an obscure precipice through showcasing a woman learning to test and strengthen her resiliency through a greater understanding of herself. And just maybe the murky economic realities of her future might not be so catastrophic after all.
Reviewed on May 16th at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival (78th edition) – Critics’ Week. 110 Mins.
★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
