Review of Baise-moi (2000) by Alex M — 28 Aug 2011

Everyone who defends this (needlessly) controversial film likes to say that it's absolutely, definitely not porn. They say this because "the film is not meant for masturbation" or some other legally defining excuse. Even the filmmakers have cried out, "This is not porn!" in their own defense.

But the thing is... it totally is. This movie is porn. It gleefully fetishisizes violence, rape, drug use, lesbianism, domestic abuse, cock-vomiting, sodomy, robbery, gambling, blow jobs, punk-music, revenge, menstruation, patriarchal oppression, suicide and your good old fashioned non-simulated sex. Most of the time the script feels like it's just ticking off boxes on some all inclusive list of kinks. And it's all done for the money shot, baby... every time. You know why it's porn? It's porn because it shows all of those things in detailed close ups... but it has nothing to say about any of them.

Directed in a classic DIY style and squarely falling into the "New French Extremism" movement, it was made by two-women. One a former punk turned massage-parlour hostess and the other an ex-porn star. It features two other female porn actresses mass-murdering and fucking across France, all in "trash" aesthetic video shot in available light. It's a female power fantasy. An act of sexual reclamation that reverses the conversation on gender violence and it's created by actual sex-workers. So that, in and of itself, is interesting... the actual film, however, is tedious artificial bullshit.

At times the movie does seem to show a passing interest in addressing genuine gender-war rage, but that's all thoroughly lost in its own apatite for shock imagery and its desperate need to be offensive. I've read interviews where the filmmakers claim the movie speaks to all kinds of social injustices, from class separation to racism, and I suppose those ingredients are there in the mix, but in the end this movie is really only concerned with being more pornography in a porn saturated world.

Although the fact that the movie has been banned in several countries, including France, suggests that it's just the sort of artistic exercise society needs. So there's that.

If you're into camp, actual on camera fucking (Raffaela Anderson is pretty hot) and you don't mind a very intense rape scene (why is the sex so real and the violence so cartoonish in this movie?), I guess it's a pretty fascinating thing to watch.