Baise Moi

English movie poster.

Europeans most certainly have a taste for movies that are extremely raw, some like to call them shocking, some others call them porn & violence, and some others call them as raw as reality. Examples of explicit exploitation films can be found in the earliest decades of the genre up to our 21st century.

Baise-Moi, AKA, Rape Me; though the accurate translation is Fuck Me;  is a 2000 movie that shows us how bad is doing our society, and instead of doing something about it we prefer to sit comfy in our sofa and say "this movie is shocking, the guy who did it was a total wacko"

This movie delivers the worst of human kind, violence, drug abuse, rapists, prostitutes and a neverending feeling of discontent with our miserable lives.

The Girl got reasons.

"Doy you wanna mess with me asshole?"

The story follows Nadine (Karen Lancaume aka Karen Bach) and Manu (Raffaella Anderson) are two girls that routinely endure violation both in word and deed on an almost daily basis as prostitutes and part-time porno actresses respectively. The gang rape of Manu and her drug-addicted friend shown here is totally different from the clichéd they-may-protest-at-first type of rape scene encountered in some adults only features. While the other girl cries and screams throughout (and is ever more horribly abused because of it), Manu adopts a facade of indifferent resignation, cleverly robbing her rapists of their sadistic thrill. Rest assured that the scene goes on a lot longer than anyone would want it to and that it is very painful to watch, which is the whole point of it, the filmmaker wants you to feel uncomfortable, dirty and shocked with it; though this isn’t the first attempt at filming the darkest side of the human side; it does offer us an up to date version of earlier releases such as the hated classic I Spitin Your Grave, Aka Day of the Woman reviewed here some time ago. 

Sex is a tool, an escape to reality.

There is no pleasure, only pain.

When Manu and Nadine meet and embark on their violent road trip, fully aware that they ultimately can't 'get away with it', sex becomes a source of liberation to them. Like so many guys on the lam in any criminal buddy movie you can think of, they take what they want, when and how they want it, casually discarding (not always violently) their casual partners post-orgasm. One of the most common accusations at porn's address is that the explicit sex scenes dehumanize the people performing them, but here that could not be further from the truth, at least porn is supposed to get watchers horny, here you’re supposed to get sick with the sex scenes.

Former hardcore actresses Lancaume and Anderson are both terrific in their parts and the sex they have (yes, real sex for the cause of the storyline) enhances their characterizations, rendering them more complete. The 'cinema vérité' rawness of the digital video format in which it was shot, interrupted by sudden flashes of style when violence erupts (an artistic decision to give the viewer a feel for the power and pleasure the women derive from their acts as an escape route from their lost souls in pain), draws the viewer uncomfortably close to the action. Again, that seems to be the point. 

These girls do what they want, not what you want.

This film displays the truth  we have to admit it, there's shit around us, feel happy dude.

So don't let the negative publicity fool you. BAISE-MOI is a rare film that utterly achieves what it sets out to do and it bodes well for debut cinéastes Despentes (author of the sulfurous source novel) and ex-porn star Coralie. You may like it  or you may hate it, but this is an important film that no one is likely to ever forget, no matter how hard they might try, besides after its release French director Gaspar Noé, directed Irreversible in 2002, which was in a way the opposite of this movie, cause we had a love story that was abruptly transformed and turned into a desperate revenge, yes I will review some time, but give me time, I own that flick and it was quite hard to swallow.

Here’s the movie trailer:

  

One final thought: be happy with your life, help the ones unhappy, do it now.