The Sales Girl — Sengedorj Janchivdorj

“The thing in the corner is a vagina tightener. Women always ask for these,” says the usually quiet young university student Saruul (Bayarjargal Bayartsetseg) while filling in a shift for her friend who works at a sex shop. But despite taking place within a sex shop, The Sales Girl, one of the few Mongolian new releases to hit VOD so far this year, features a lot less sex than one might initially suppose. Even the time spent in the sex shop is relatively tame for the subject matter, and director Sengedorj Janchivdorj instead fixates more on embarrassment than sexual curiosity and kink. The kernel under the provocative front is an earnest and moving film about taking agency and ownership of one’s individuality during young adulthood.

Munkhbat ShirnenJanchivdorj doesn’t deliver the spicy or raunchy film that one might enter expecting, but that doesn’t mean The Sales Girl has nothing to offer on the front of cinematic sexuality and sexual maturation. Saruul’s relationship with the owner of the store, Katya (Oidovjamts Enkhtuul), a former professional dancer, helps move the young girl into womanhood, not through sexual tutorship or any creepy May-December coercion. Rather, the development of their relationship into a space that encourages self-awareness and agency resembles the relationship between a coach and a young athlete in your typical sports movie. Katya’s immaturity, and ironically her wisdom as gained through life experiences, pulls Saruul, whether she likes it or not, into full-fledged adulthood. The only real sex scene — one that notably features a comically exaggerated cum shot — comes at the film’s conclusion, in true sexual climax fashion. And it does indeed feel like cathartic (orgasmic?) release, even if what precedes is less foreplay than a presentation of incremental vulnerability and individual artistic realization. The orgasm has less to do with sex than it does with a happy ending for.

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