Tina Kakadelis
What better way to come to terms with your sexuality than by taking a part-time job at a sex shop? In The Sales Girl, Saruul (Bayartsetseg Bayarjargal) takes the job not with the explicit desire to learn more about herself; it’s just an added benefit of this temporary employment she’s found herself in. The Sales Girl is more than merely a sexual coming-of-age tale. It’s a modest rumination on life, our purpose here, and the pleasures we find along the way.
Saruul is a science student at a local university in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. The decision to study was not her own, but one essentially made for her by her parents (Sarantuya Daaganbat and Bazarragchaa Byambajav). Saruul’s real passion lies in art. She’s always doodling or sketching while in class, but her parents don’t want her to pursue a career in art because there’s no money or stability there. One of Saruul’s science classmates asks her to cover her shifts for a month at the sex shop run by Katya (Enkhtuul Oidovjamts), a Russian ex-ballerina. Saruul and Katya have nothing in common, but they spend the month forming an unlikely friendship.
For many, Saruul included, sex is very much a taboo subject. The patrons of the sex shop in The Sales Girl range from those who cover their faces to hide their identity to those who are open in their desires. It’s a world Saruul doesn’t know anything about, but the longer she works in the store, the closer she gets to the shop’s owner. Katya is unlike anyone Saruul has ever met. She lives in a lavish home, has employees, and, maybe most importantly, talks freely about whatever comes into her mind. Katya is a firm believer that her life is hers alone, and she takes issue with Saruul allowing her parents to make decisions about her future.
The duality of Saruul and Katya is in their own beliefs about freedom. As they grow closer, Katya continues to push Saruul to live life the right way. Well, the right way in Katya’s mind, which directly opposes Saruul’s more simplistic approach. Each woman has valid points: Katya believes that a person should go after the things she wants and Saruul believes that one doesn’t need to be obscenely rich to be happy. Where Katya is stuck in her ways, The Sales Girl shows Saruul willing to make concessions in order to live her life in a way that is meaningful to her. Even in Saruul’s journey of her sexuality, she doesn’t end the film having figured it all out or taking all the advice Katya imparts. Instead, she finds comfort in herself and what she has discovered. It’s an impressive feat to feel content in a moment as it’s happening, and that is the peace Saruul comes to find.
The Sales Girl straddles the line between realism and a touch of surrealism in the way it integrates its soundtrack. Throughout the film, there are small music videos of sorts that capture the mental state of Saruul. One of the first instances of the music blending into the plot is when Saruul takes the bus home after work one day. She’s lip syncing along in her own little world, which highlights the separation she feels from the world around her. Saruul lives within her own mind, and it’s only through her friendship with Katya that her world expands. As charming as that musical moment is, there aren’t enough moments of it throughout the film to make sense of its inclusion. There wasn’t a natural blend of the soundtrack into the film, but the music itself is perfect, very reminiscent of work by The National.
The climax of The Sales Girl is a slight spoiler, but one that has to be touched on. Part of Saruul’s job is to make local deliveries, and one of the men who orders from the shop assaults Saruul. She believes Katya knew this would happen and it causes a rift between the two. From one angle, this scene serves as the flip side of the coin to all of Katya’s positive talk about sex. Not only can sex bring pleasure, it can bring violence as well. Had the film not glossed over it as quickly as it did, the scene likely wouldn’t have stuck out so much. Saruul and Katya talk about a multitude of topics, but never revisit what happened to Saruul, except in the immediate aftermath. That’s disappointing.
“Sex shops are not pornography. They’re pharmacies,” Katya tells Saruul when they have dinner together. In a literal way she’s right, because her shop does sell Viagra, but she’s also right in a metaphorical way as well. The Sales Girl isn’t interested in the actual act of sex, but in what the exploration of it can be. There’s no big moment of sexual revelation from Saruul, but there doesn’t need to be one either. Instead, it’s the quiet, internal growth of a person that comes from figuring out what makes them happy.
