Baise Moi

French cinema has produced some real cinematic gems in the past; Cyrano De Bergerac, Nikita, Betty Blue, The Big Blue and so on. Now French cinema gives us Baise Moi (translated “Fuck Me” and not “Rape Me” as the press claim) which as the title suggests, isn’t a subtle film. Based on the novel by Virginie Despentes, who also wrote the screenplay and co-directed Baise Moi, the story is a haphazard and rather pointless mess about of two women who go over the edge.

Manu (Raffaela Anderson), a porn actress, and a female friend are gang raped by three men. Surprisingly undisturbed by the rape, Manu returns to her apartment where her boyfriend treats her with contempt when he discovers what she does for a living. So she shoots him with his own gun.

During the same time, prostitute Nadine (Karen Bach) strangles and kills her roommate during the heat of an argument.

These two protagonists meet by chance at a train station, where Manu takes Nadine hostage at gunpoint, forcing her to drive her so she can see the sea. However, the two soon become fast friends and continue on a rampage across the country, screwing and killing indiscriminately.

Baise Moi is one of the worst films to have graced the silver screen. It’s a shame that a small group of morons believe that this tripe is a cult classic in the making. Every aspect is abysmal from the cheap video-like images to the extremely poor dialogue and acting, all hindered by some of the worst directed cliché scenarios ever.

The performances are amongst the worse that have ever been seen (and that includes the auditions for Pop Idol). The two lead ‘actresses’ were recruited from the French porn industry and for good reason – no self-respecting actresses would do the things that they do which include fully shown penetrative sex, graphic fellatio and many other sexual situations. Both leads are completely without charisma or chemistry and as this is their big break into ‘mainstream’ films they haven’t managed to impress.

The sexual content is very high and is the same sort of stuff that is shown in pornographic movies (and they make much better viewing than this tripe – and that includes having better plots!). The scenes are completely un-titillating or sexy and come across as feeble and lame attempts at trying to make the film shocking/controversial to try an increase interest in it. Also Baise Moi is very violent, but the violence is so badly shot and so cheaply filmed that it comes across as ridiculous. Again, it comes across as irrelevant to the story but added to increase controversy.

The dialogue is atrocious too with almost every male dialogue consisting of some semblance of the words ‘Bitch’, ‘Whores’ and “Piss off” and the equally witty repertoire and comeback from the female leads include great lines such as “Shut Up” and “Asshole”. They cannot even come up with a decent name for themselves (they call themselves the Condom Dickhead Killers)

Baise Moi has two directors, the aforementioned Virginie Despentes and porn actress Coralie Thirnh Thi. They both seem to think that the film that they have made is some sort of feminist intellectual piece. The real fact is that these two wannabe directors believe that their pseudo-intellectualism nonsense shows depth and that incomprehensible aggression towards men shows somehow portrays heroism.

The really annoying thing about Baise Moi isn’t the overdone babbling or the sex and violence; it’s the fact that the film has attracted attention by being controversial. The film makers have secured notoriety through the film being banned in so many countries, which is a real shame as its not provocative – just childish and amateurish and therefore undeserved of all the attention it has received. The only people who got raped are the audience and thankfully the pain only lasts 70 odd minutes.

SCORE 0/10