Maison Close was an amazing entry in television from France. The series transports viewers to a fine bordello in the Paris of 1871. The first season was addictive when it hit the shores on home video. The was able to show all that goes on behind the historic whore house. Think of this as HBO’s Cathouse visits Downton Abbey. Maison Close: Season Two arrives on home video January 12. Sadly this is also the final season on the series. Maybe Netflix can revive it? Here’s the press release from Music Box Films Home Entertainment:
MUSIC BOX FILMS HOME ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCES
Maison Close: Season Two
Coming to Blu-ray and DVD on January 12, 2016
Chicago, IL (November 23, 2015) – Set in a lavish brothel in 19th Century Paris, the wildly popular French erotic drama series MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO returns to further weave its sexy tales of the women of “The Paradise,” an infamous bordello that caters to aristocratic and bourgeois clientele known for its strange and refined practices during a time of legalized prostitution.
Created by Jacques Ouaniche, MAISON CLOSE focuses on a trio of The Paradise’s most provocative women: Rose (Jemima West), a young woman, newly arrived in Paris in search of her mother, who was tricked into service at the brothel; Véra (Anne Charrier), a courtesan in her mid-thirties nearing the end of her career, hoping a wealthy customer will pay her debt and free her from servitude; and Hortense (Valerie Karsenti), the owner of The Paradise who must do whatever she can to retain her girls, keep the brothel open and steer clear of the forces intent on shutting her business down. The new season of the critically acclaimed drama picks up at The Paradise where Season One left off, as a royalist chief commander rises to power and reinstates a city-wide Moral Order which threatens the brothel’s very existence.
MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO has been praised as much for its historical accuracy and political astuteness as its bold eroticism, with Alessandra Stanley of THE NEW YORK TIMES lauding it as “Baudelaire meets The Playboy Channel.”
“For more than three years I have been thinking of this series whose heroine is a young girl, trapped, forced to prostitute herself in a luxury brothel at the end of the nineteenth century at the beginning of the Third Republic,” says MAISON CLOSE creator Ouaniche of the series’ origins. “I wanted to uncover the daily lives of these sex workers, most of all of the women, and their privileged relationships with powerful men in a time period not so remote from ours.”
Music Box Films Home Entertainment will release MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO on Blu-ray and DVD on January 12, 2015, following its broadcast debut across leading markets in Europe, Asia and South America. The MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO Blu-ray and DVD editions will include a collector’s booklet, and carry the suggested retail prices of $39.95 and $34.95, respectively. MAISON CLOSE: SEASON ONE is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.
The release of the MAISON CLOSE series marks Music Box Films’ latest entry in the company’s growing international television catalog, which includes such recent releases as Sweden’s Wallander, Germany’s Generation War, France’s The Returned and Japan’s Penance by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO Synopsis:
Paris,1871: In a high-end brothel called The Paradise, three women are each attempting to escape their own personal prisons of secrets, debt and sex. Rose (Jemima West) is a young woman newly arrived in Paris in search of her mother, who is tricked into service at The Paradise. Véra (Anne Charrier) is a courtesan in her mid-thirties who knows that the end of her career is upon her and holds out hope that a wealthy customer will pay her debt and free her from servitude. And then there’s Paradise owner Hortense (Valerie Karsenti), who must do whatever she can to retain her girls and keep the brothel open, all the while resisting the advances of a dangerous debt collector from out of town.
As MAISON CLOSE: SEASON TWO opens, times are tough at The Paradise. The rise to power of a royalist chief commissioner marks the return of a Moral Order. In order to survive under the demands of the new commissioner, Rose, Véra and Hortense form an alliance with a flamboyant gangster, who seizes the opportunity to set up his headquarters at the brothel. Exciting, beautiful and sexier than ever, the women of the Paradise will do everything they can to hold onto their freedom.
Bonus Feature:
Collector’s booklet including photos and essays
Maison Close: Season Two
Music Box Films Home Entertainment
BLU-RAY and DVD RELEASE DATES: January 12, 2015
Price: DVD (three discs) $34.95; BLU-RAY (two discs) $39.95
Creator: Jacques Ouaniche
Directors: Mabrouk El Mechri, Jérôme Cornuau
Cast: Valerie Karsenti, Anne Charrier, Jemima West, Catherine Hosmalin, Michael Abiteboul, Michael Cohen, Blandine Bellavoir, Deborah Grall, Clemence Bretecher, Michael Abiteboul, Fatou N’Diaye, Martin Loizilon, Lubna Gourion
Running Time: 16 hours
Format: 2.35:1 widescreen
Sound Format: Dolby Digital 5.1 (DVD); DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (Blu-ray)
Country: France
Language: French with English subtitles
About Music Box Films:
Founded in 2007, Music Box Films is a leading North American distributor of acclaimed international, American independent and documentary features along with the best in international television. Recent releases include Pawel Pawlikowski’s IDA, the 2015 Academy Award ®-winner for Best Foreign Language Film and MERU, winner of the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Upcoming releases include CENSORED VOICES, a documentary revealing never-before-heard audio recordings after Israel’s 1967 Six Day War; and THE CLUB, Pablo Larraín’s taut black comedy about exiled priests, winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. Music Box Films is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation, which also owns and operates The Music Box Theatre, Chicago’s premiere venue for independent and foreign films.
