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Whores’ Glory (2011) is a documentary written and directed by award-winning Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger. The film works to depict prostitution globally by following sex workers across three different countries, languages, and religions.

The film begins in Thailand, where sex workers are ostensibly auctioned off to the highest bidder; moves to Bangladesh, where prostitution takes place only at the margins of society; and concludes in Mexico, where sex workers are denigrated and relentlessly objectified. 

Plot

According to Glawogger's Director's Comments, the unifying thread holding the film together is the notion that "prostitution isn't only about paying somebody for sex." In making Whores' Glory, he set out to answer the question: "what does [prostitution] do to the hearts, minds, and souls on both sides" of the transaction?

The film is divided into three locally defined episodes: Bangkok (Thailand), Faridpur (Bangladesh) and Reynosa (Mexico).

In Thailand, the film focusses on a brothel called The Fish Tank in Bangkok, Thailand, which functions as a crude intersection of a gentlemen's club and auction hall. Sex workers sit together in a brightly lit, glass room. By consequence of their profession, they are stripped of their names, and instead numbered. Meanwhile, men lounge comfortably -- drinks in hand -- behind the pane of glass. At their leisure, the "clients" are free to choose whichever sex worker they wish, provided they possess the money to pay for her (or, in some cases, the ability to bargain down the price).

In the second segment, the film shifts its focus to a vast brothel called the City of Joy, in the ghettos of the town of Faridpur, Bangladesh. Permanently housed within the sprawling, multi-story structure are 600 to 800 women, forced into sex work by the "madame". The madams play the dual role of money collector and maternal protector, but often times lean more strongly towards the former. In one scene, for instance, a madame buying a prostitute from another madame haggles over the price of the girl, causing the girl to erupt into a fit of tears and screaming. Sex workers at the City of Joy also have and actively seek out regular customers. 

Finally, the film concludes in the city of Reynosa, Mexico -- not far from Mexico's border with Texas. There it is common, as in other Mexican cities, to designate the legal areas for prostitution as zonas de tolerancia (tolerance zones). The entrance to the Zona is secured with barriers and is constantly monitored by the police. However, once inside, seemingly anything goes. Contrasted against the prostitution culture in Thailand and Bangladesh, "clients" in Reynosa actively partake in lewd objectification of sex workers. Meanwhile, the workers themselves, some of whom are portrayed as having gone crazy, "pray to a female death to avoid facing their own reality."

Critical Response

Critics and audiences responded more with respect for Glawogger’s self-described “cinematic triptych on prostitution” than outright praise.  

On RottenTomatoes.com, the film was given an 89% ranking by critics, with an average rating of 7.5/10. Audiences enjoyed the film as well. 74% of viewers "liked the film", and earned an average audience rating of 3.8/5.

Critics on the other hand almost universally described their viewing experiences as sad and eye-opening, but nonetheless worthy of respect.  Andrew O’Hehir, writing for Salon, applauds “the film’s insistence that the women Glawogger meets . . . remain defiantly individual, even in the face of a system of sexual and economic exploitation they cannot (or at least do not) resist.”  Similarly, Stephen Holden, of the New York Times, and Michael O'Sullivan, of the Washington Post, praises the film for the non-judgemental stance it takes towards the sex workers it encounters.  

Finally, critics seemed also to praise both the remarkable amount of access granted to Glawogger in shooting Whores’ Glory and the hands-off approach he adopted.  The film presents itself to its audience without the aide of narrations or commentary. It simply and beautifully presents each community as it exists, not as Glawogger intends it to be interpreted.