Baise-moi comes to us amidst a
cloud of controversy. The film was banned in its home
country, France ?banned in France, ladies and
gentlemen. And various American critics, all of them
men, have tried to wash their hands of it. But here it
is, in all its punky, spunky, nihilistic glory. A
girls-hit-the-road movie that makes Thelma and
Louise look like "Kate and Allie," Baise-moi
is directed by Virginie Despentes, a respected novelist
in France, and Coralie Trinh Thi, a respected porn
actress. And it stars Karen Bach and Raffaela Anderson,
themselves porn actresses, as a prostitute and a, uh,
porn actress who’ve had it up to here (and I think we all
know where "here" is) with men. So what do they do? They
join forces, heading off on a crime spree that will
include lots and lots of humping and shtumping, usually
followed by looting and shooting. What we have here, in
other words, is an Andrea Dworkin wet dream, a porno
movie that's designed to leave a really bad taste in men's
mouths. But will it? I wonder.
Crudely shot, crudely edited, crudely
acted and ?last but not least ?crudely written,
Baise-moi wears its punk esthetic like a badge of
honor. Basically, it's an art film posing as an
exploitation film, with segues into the wonderful world
of porn. There are scenes of graphic sex and scenes of
graphic violence, but I suspect only the scenes of
graphic sex will offend anybody, the graphic violence
having been simulated. (Ah, an envelope left to push.)
And if the directors don't exactly dwell on the sex acts
the way regular porn movies do, grinding away until we
wearily reach for the remote, they certainly show oral
and vaginal penetration, including a seemingly
unnecessary close-up during a rape scene. That close-up
may be Despentes and Thi's version of a money shot ?their
guarantee of authenticity. But do we really need such a
guarantee? Does knowing that the actress was actually
being penetrated (though not raped, surely) make the
scene any more painful than it already would be?
Your answer to that question may be a clue
to how you'rel wind up feeling about Baise-moi.
Personally, I enjoyed the film’s slummy, scummy
mise-en-scène more than I did its sex and violence, both
of which seemed rudimentary, either on purpose or by
accident. But let's face it, this is a part of France we
didn't get to see in, say, Chocolat. Despentes and
Thi, who co-wrote the script (based on a novel by
Despentes), offer throwaway gags by way of explaining
what pushes the women over the edge. "There's no work in
France," one of them says, as if that in itself might
turn someone into a sex-crazed serial killer. The
victims are not all men, by the way. On the contrary,
our sex/killing machines seem hell-bent on destroying
whoever has the misfortune of crossing their paths ?all
in the name of liberation, of course. Or, as one of them
so eloquently puts it, "We'rel follow our star and let rip
the motherfucker side of our soul." Shakespeare, eat
your heart out.
I thought I caught allusions to those
cinematic landmarks, Breathless and The 400
Blows; it's as if the tide has finally turned on the
French New Wave, leaving flotsam and jetsam scattered
all over the screen. Like Jean-Paul Belmondo in
Breathless and Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400
Blows, the women in Baise-moi sense the
romance of crime, the way it can bring meaning to an
otherwise meaningless life. The difference is that the
women in Baise-moi commit sex crimes, outrageous
acts of self-destructive revenge. The film's English
title is Rape Me, although Fuck Me is a
more accurate translation. (Many newspapers won't
print
the F word.) Myself, I prefer Rape Me, the way it
issues an impossible-to-obey command. Though nihilists
to the core, these women won't take no for an answer. The
whole movie's like that ?very direct, very explicit, very
in-your-face. There’s not much artistry in it, or much
art. But it certainly drives its message home: Women can
be just as disgusting as men.
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