WARNING: THE FILM REVIEWED HERE IS BOTH GRAPHICALLY VIOLENT AND EXPLICITLY PORNOGRAPHIC. THIS REVIEW CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE NECESSARY TO MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION OF THE CONTENT AND ISSUES OF THE FILM.

Baise-moi, which has been variously translated into English as Kiss Me, Rape Me, or Fuck Me, is a lot better film than it is usually given credit for being. It is part porn film, part art film, and part treatise on the genuine frustrations of disenfranchised lower-class women. This film has something on its mind and is not shy in voicing it. It is a bit reminiscent of the film Thelma and Louise, with angry woman on the lam, but it is a good deal more raw, violent, and realistic. Baise-moi raises serious issues seldom broached by other films, in a substantial way. Whether the film encourages thought about those issues or, conversely, evokes so much emotion that it becomes impossible for viewers to think clearly about the issues is an open question. Baise-moi can also be viewed as contributing to what I believe will be an inevitable continuing direction in filmmaking – exploration of the interface between pornography and serious films of substance and quality. Most pornographic films (from my limited experience) are notoriously lacking in narrative value or other cinematic qualities except basic prurient interest. A handful of films – Caligula, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, The Dreamers, the uncut version of Y Tu Mamá También, for example – have attempted to integrate realistic and explicit sexuality, perverse or otherwise, into serious movies. It is a legitimate (not to mention potentially lucrative) artistic objective.

Historical Background: Baise-Moi was co-directed by Virginia Despentes and Caralie Trinh Thi. Virginia Despentes is also a writer and the film was based on her first novel, Kiss Me (1993) which sold over 40,000 copies, was translated into ten languages, and won the Prix de Flore award. She followed her initial literary success with Erudite Bitches (1995) and The Pretty Things (1998) and has another novel, Teen Spirit, in the works. Despentes hired Caralie Trinh Thi as co-director because she had experience as an actress and director in porn films. Despentes was born on June 13th, 1969 in Nancy, which is in Lorraine Province in northeastern France. She was the only child of a pair of civil servants. She worked as a cleaning lady, a hostess for a television massage show in Lyon, a freelance journalist for rock-and-roll and porn magazines, and a saleswoman in the book department of a Virgin Megastore in Paris. Her literary style combines vulgarity with realism.

The Story: Manu (Raffaela Anderson), a lovely petite brunette and an occasional porn actress, has a boyfriend who is pretty much a waste of protoplasm. He's likely not long for this world, since several tough guys are after him. Her best friend is a junkie. Her brother gives her money and protects her from the thugs who beat up her boyfriend, but he also slaps her around now and then. When Manu and her friend are gang raped by three lowlifes, the friend gets beaten up while trying ineffectively to resist the sexual assault while Manu resorts instead to passive-aggression, insulting the rapist's manhood and denying him any responsiveness. Later, when Manu's hot-headed brother discovers that she's been raped, his one thought is revenge rather than concern for Manu's well being. That response, though a common one among male friends and relatives of rape victims, is another kind of objectification of women. The brother is angry mainly because other men have abused his sister. It's an insult to his manhood. Manu's pent-up anger explodes, at this point, and she shoots her brother dead. She then pockets his savings and takes off.

Meanwhile, Nadine (Karen Bach), a tall dark-haired prostitute, lives with a roommate who nags her constantly – about communication, about drugs and alcohol, and about her drug-addled main squeeze. Nadine smokes a lot of marihuana and is unusually fond of porn, for a woman. Nadine finally has her fill of her roommate's complaints, jumps her, and strangles her to death. She then goes to meet her boyfriend, who is badly in need of a fix. She writes a phony prescription for him, but he is shot dead in the street while on his way to the pharmacy. She decides to leave town on the next train. At the station, she meets up with Manu.

The two women have never previously met and obviously neither knows that the other has just committed a murder. Both have nothing left to lose. Manu has a car but doesn't drive; Nadine drives but has no car. The two pair up and spend the rest of the film on the lam. Their road trip quickly turns into a violent murder spree. The victims include a woman at an ATM machine, a gun store salesman, a man at an ATM, a dorky guy at a casino who makes the mistake of calling the pair "cunts," two cops at a roadblock, a man who proffers a lewd remark while passing them on the street, a wealthy man in his home, and about a dozen people at a sex club. In one much talked-about scene, a man is forced to drop his drawers and is shot by Manu with her pistol inserted in his nether throat. Although more dramatic than the commonplace execution style film killings (the bullet in the head), the net impact on the victim is the same. By contrast, two guys who Manu and Nadine pick up for sex and who leave when asked to get off Scot-free, as do an empathetic woman and her boyfriend. Gradually, the media coverage of their crime spree expands and the police close in on them. The ending is a bit of a surprise that I'll leave for viewers to discover.

Themes: In preparing to write this review, I've read over twenty reviews or comments about the film from various sources, as I typically do for each review that I write. There is a discernible emotional charge in most of the reviews of Baise-Moi. Some are outright rants. Most viewers of this film are apparently so disgusted by the content of this film that their principal aim in writing about the film seems to be either to crush the film or to ensure their readers that they took no pleasure in watching such perverse material. Baise-Moi is a movie that intends to push viewer's emotional buttons and it is obviously succeeding in doing so.

As prelude to discussing the content of this film, let me first disclose my views, in general, in relation to explicit sex and graphic violence. I find nothing repugnant about explicit depictions of sex in works of art or as pornography, provided that such materials are appropriately labeled and regulated so that access is limited to adult audiences. Personally, I find the kind of infantile sexual innuendo that abounds in network television and many Hollywood films, especially those designed for the teen market, more repugnant than sex presented naturalistically, whether in an artsy, veiled manner or explicitly. On the issue of violence, I am perhaps more conservative in my views (or perhaps not). I dislike depictions of violence that are either gratuitous (serving no narrative or thematic purpose beyond titillation) or sanitized (promoting the dangerous idea that violence doesn't have real consequences). When violence is necessary to the narrative or thematic purposes of a film, I prefer that it be presently graphically and realistically so that viewers will experience it as abhorrent. In my judgment, the sanitized violence in a film like John Woo's Killer has more potential to negatively influence impressionable or unstable minds than the more emotionally repugnant violence of films like Pixote or Baise-moi.

The central theme of Baise-Moi is anger attributable to unrelenting sexism and classism in Western society. The anger is raw and palpable, reflecting its most extreme manifestation. The issues raised go far beyond the aberrant behavior of two women run amok because it is reasonable to assume that for every Manu or Nadine who falls off the edge of sanity due to repeated mistreatment, there are thousands who suffer in relative silence, via depression, psychosis, anxiety, and drug addiction. Lower-class women are at the bottom of the heap in Western society. They have the least opportunity and fewest options for getting ahead or finding their way to a decent kind of life. The lower-class men with whom they are thrown together are even more sexist and abusive, on average, than their bourgeois counterparts. Every viewer who has ever felt alienated or marginalized from society will recognize the feelings of the two protagonists of Baise-Moi, even though such viewers will reject Manu and Nadine's method of expressing their anger. Those who have never experienced the feeling of being rejected by society will simply argue that the film has nothing to say.

This film is partly about sexism and its inverse – female empowerment. It is also about classism. It is the combination of being mired in poverty and being a woman that leads to the despair and anger that Nadine and Manu then manifest. The class element is made evident in the selection of victims, which is not, as some reviewers claim, random. Nadine and Manu steal a car that was left running by a man who stopped at an ATM machine. As they pull away, they shoot the man dead as he attempts to protest the theft. Manu exuberantly exclaims, "That calmed that fucker down! Asshole in a suit. Hi! Bang! The look on him! Fucking bastard!" The "asshole in a suit" comment is a class issue. Their very first victim, as a team, is a woman in a business suit who stops by another ATM. At the home of a couple who has briefly taken them in, Nadine observes, "This reminds me of the home we'll never have." Shortly thereafter, they are directed to a wealthy man's home, planning to rob the safe. Manu comments as they approach the house, "Fuck, this asshole's got a fancy place." He is thereby cast as a potential victim, not because he is a man, but because he is upper class and privileged in a way that Manu and Nadine never were and never will be. It is too simplistic to write off this film as a "feminist screed" or "road-movie feminism" as the (mostly male) reviewers do. This film is also about class disparities.

Clearly, however, sexism is one piece of the disenfranchisement these women feel. The guy on the street who greets the pair with the line, "Wanna feel my balls slappin' your ass?," is shot dead, paying the price for a multiplicity of guys before him who have similarly taunted young women. They kick another guy to death after he refuses to have sex without a condom, then can't get it up, and finally complains vociferously when Manu throws up on his crotch while giving him head. They've had their fill of being treated like meat by men. Both want and enjoy sex, but have learned to dissociate the experience from any feelings for the guy involved. After the rape scene, for example, Manu states the point quite explicity: "If you park in the projects, you empty your car 'cause someone's gonna break in. I leave nothing precious in my cunt for those jerks." They've been worn down by uncaring treatment to the point of utter alienation from human society. Now, with each having committed a murder, they've got nothing more to lose. They'll blow it all on one last orgy of sex and violence. "We'll follow our star and let rip the motherfucker side of our soul." Later, as they realize that they're drawing close to the inevitable conclusion of their binge, Manu declares, "I want it to end as good as it began. You know, with a great punchline, like." That leads to the final orgasm of violence at the Libertine Club. This film is scary to male viewers because it presents women who have the same distorted sense of entitlement that has traditionally been the exclusive province of men. Like the authorities that arrive at the end of Baise-Moi, screaming, "Freeze, bitch! Where's the other bitch?" most male viewers just can't wait to get these dangerously empowered women back in line. Thank you, Virginie, for telling it like it is!

We wonder, as does the man that they stay with one evening, how they can be so blasé about their impending deaths or incarcerations. "For girls on the run," he says, "you're pretty laidback." Manu responds, "It's because we lack imagination." The more precise word is "hope." Hope springs from imagination. Manu and Nadine had reached the point of no hope for themselves or human society, when they set out together. Instead of merely committing suicide, they'll first exact a pound of penalty from the society they view as their tormentor.

When their behavior is challenged near the end, Nadine states, "We've got no excuses." There is no excuse for a murderous rampage, especially when there is mostly no connection between the individuals who they murdered and the others who tormented them – the rapists, the sexists, and the power-brokers responsible for the social system and its obscene class disparities. A society has to hold individuals responsible for their own aberrant behaviors. On the other hand, a healthy society also has to examine the social antecedents that contribute not only to violence, but to despair, alienation, lack of opportunity, and exploitation. Responsibility is not an either/or proposition. There is individual responsibility and there are sociologic factors that also contribute. Those who claim that this film has no message are those who will not let themselves recognize how all of us – the society we have constructed – contribute to the antisocial behavior of the exploited and disadvantaged. Every bully, every abusive parent, every sexist, every homophobe, every rightist opponent of the social safety net contributes to both the despair and violence that emerges when groups of people in our society lack hope, dignity, and opportunity. There were steps that either Manu or Nadine could have taken to help herself. There are also choices that societies can make that decrease the percentage of people who despair and turn to such acts of desperation.

The same dichotomy of responsibility applies to international tensions. Terrorists can be likened to Manu and Nadine. They engage in violent acts that cannot be justified and for which they must be held accountable. At the same time, a wise country needs to ask itself the question, "What could we do differently as a country to reduce the motivation for anti-American terrorism?" Consider, however, how little thought or discussion has transpired in America since 9/11 to understand how American foreign policy and corporate activities fuel terrorism or to modify those practices. The vast majority of Americans prefer the simplistic view that terrorists are evil to soul-searching or thoughtful national reassessment. For the same reason, most reviewers of Baise-Moi refuse to understand its message.

Production Values: Several reviewers comment that both the sex and the violence in this film are "unpleasant." Certainly the violence is, as well as the part of the sex that is combined with violence. Despentes and Thi do not let viewers off the hook so readily, however. There are two sex scenes that most viewers will find pleasingly erotic, viewed independently, if they're honest with themselves. One involves the two lead women dancing erotically together and another involves Nadine and Manu with two men they've invited to their room. Neither of these men treats the women dismissively or abusively, verbally or otherwise, and both ultimately leave intact. Nadine, who we already have learned loves porn, gets off on watching her friend having sex, while she is engaged in sex herself.

There's an effective episodic flow to the story and a pretty decent soundtrack. There's also some intelligent humor here and there, though it seems to have gone largely unnoticed. After blowing away the gun store saleman, Manu complains, "Fuck, we're useless. Where are the witty lines?" Think James Bond dropping a villain in the pond with the barracudas, musing, "Bon appetite!" Nadine replies, "We've got the moves, that's something. We're not that bad, I think." Manu is unconvinced: "No, I mean, people are dying. The dialog has to be up to it. Good and crucial, like!" "We can't write it in advance," says Nadine. "You're right! That's totally unethical," says Manu, who has just qualified as a serial killer.

The cinematography is the grainy, bare-bones, minimalism that we all came to know and love in Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave. It gives the film a realism and immediacy that fits its subject matter. The camera angles are generally pleasing, which is a tricky business for a film that integrates the respective traditions of porn and art films.

Most porn stars are notoriously poor actors and actresses outside of their area of specialization. Bach and Anderson are notable exceptions, providing impressive performances throughout the film. "Karen Bach" was actually a pseudonym for a porn actress whose real name is Karen Lancaume. She was born in 1973 near Lyon, France. Believe it or not, she was a demure country girl until her hormones kicked in around age seventeen, developing her interest in men and sex. She began studying advertising and worked at a discotheque on weekends to earn money. There she met her husband and the pair began work together in a porn film to pay the bills. She proved more adept at porn acting than her husband, however, and went on to star with leading males of the industry.

Bottom-Line: I've said before that I generally like to measure a film against the director's intents. There is little question that Despentes and Thi accomplished pretty much what they set out to do: to shock the audience into some awareness of the intensity of the anger that people experience when they are abused and disadvantaged. This film has plenty of bite and, if you get past the abhorrence factor, should give you plenty to think about.

This film was banned in France, which is no easy task for a film to accomplish. The viewing audience for this film is likely to be very limited, since many will find it too disturbing. Although I am giving the film four-stars, I would not recommend it to friends, since it is the kind of film that a person either has to find their way to on their own or not at all. Baise-Moi is in French with English subtitles and has a running time of 77 minutes.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age