THE CANAL STREET MADAM is the feature debut for filmmaker Cameron Yates and a former grant recipient of Full Frame's Garrett Scott Documentary Development program. Telling the story of Jeanette Maier, the former proprietor of a successful New Orleans brothel, Yates' film world premiered in SXSW's documentary competition.
Eric Kohn, covering SXSW for indieWIRE, calls the film "singularly engaging":
"(Yates') camera captures intimate familial disputes (including a scene in which she discovers one of her grown sons taking heroin) and her stop-and-start impoverished lifestyle. Her legacy hides a deeper, more tragic reality—although the extent to which she suffers from her libidinous ways never fully emerges.
Yates depicts his subject as a figure of fierce iconoclasm, which is another way of saying that the movie generally feels slanted in her favor, sometimes to the detriment of the movie’s credibility as a straight verite portrait. On television, Maier never hesitates to remind the public of her pride. She calls prostitution “a victimless crime,” leaving us to wonder if she’s unaware of the damage that her seedy tendencies have obviously afflicted on her family. Her children berate her for routinely making incendiary remarks in the media, establishing an argument over whether her relaxed use of the word “whore” hurts or helps her publicity. The answer is the ultimate paradox at the core of the Madam’s person."
At The House Next Door, Elise Nakhnikian delivers this gem - "THE CANAL STREET MADAM plays a little like GREY GARDENS, only this time the mom runs a whorehouse and her daughter is one of the whores.":
"Directors of documentaries like this have a choice to make: focus on their subject's faults, creating a portrait of a fascinating but flawed human being, or take a nonjudgmental stance, using their subjects as a window into a world. Yates chose the second path, seeming to take Maier's frequent self-justifications at face value. Maybe for that reason, he gets great access. He's there for some key moments, like when Maier watches news reports about other madams releasing their client lists—something she is always threatening to do—or when she gets her son out of prison. (The son doesn't say much on the ride home, maybe because he doesn't love being on camera as much as his mama does.)"
Farihah Zaman, writing for the REVERSEBLOG, notes that - like SXSW Jury Champ MARWENCOL - the primary strength of the film is the protagonist:
"Maier is smart, eloquent, and disarmingly straightforward. Director Cameron Yates, in his documentary film debut, lacks aesthetic finesse (one wonders about the preponderance of slow motion shots and a particularly shaky car ride), but shows promise as a storyteller and interviewer. Apparently THE CANAL STREET MADAM took several years to film, and his intimacy with Jeannette and her family is apparent, and he arranges events to unfold in ways that are by turns touching and suspenseful."
Writing at Cinematical, Peter Martin mostly encapsulates the plotline, but manages to offer the pull quote, "compulsively watchable":
"Maier's ebullient, 'never say die' personality carries the documentary forward, as she deals with employment issues, incredibly nasty public audiences, and threatening phone calls."
Meanwhile, indieWIRE has questions for Yates. Filmmaker Magazine's Alicia Van Couvering has an interview.
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