Baise-Moi (2000)

Under the guise of a film about female sexual empowerment Baise-Moi is really just an excuse for numerous gratuitous scenes of sex and violence. Excellent start. It’s in French, which takes any annoying American whiney element out of it. Even better. I don’t know about you but this was enough to sell it to me. A brief outline of the plot placed this film firmly on my ‘to watch – soon’ list.

Baise-Moi follows two young women, Nadine and Manu, as they travel through France on a sex-fuelled and thoroughly violent road-trip. After a chance meeting, their mutual hatred for the world and everything in it leads them to kill, first for money, then for fun and finally just for the hell of it. There’re a lot of guns, and a lot of blood, and a lot of sex.

Apparently my theme this week is ‘Is it a film or is it porn?’ - not hugely surprising for me but apparently this is my second film of the week to include the use of real hardcore sex scenes. Starring two real-life porn-stars Karen Bach and Raffaëla Anderson, Baise-Moi does not shy away from anything. There are scenes here which wouldn’t look too out of place in any proper porn film, and perhaps their inclusion is enough for some people to automatically class this as pornography – there has to be a line somewhere. For me though, this is definitely not porn. The music’s different. Or the lighting. Or the language… something. Something is there that definitely makes these scenes acceptable (if graphic) parts of film. Integral parts too as, at least in my opinion, anything softer would be at odds with the level of violence in the film. And toning down both the sex and the violence would render the whole film largely pointless. These women are angry and bored and drug-fuelled, and who wants to see a half-hearted, only mildly irritated with the world, semi-rampage?

For all this film promised (I had heard very good things about it), I found the beginning a little dull. It’s not hugely relevant, and the promised ‘violent gang-rape’ at the beginning was frankly a let down. In a very short film (only 78 minutes) they seem to waste a long time setting the scene. I forgot this after a while though, and was soon drawn into the plot. The film builds gradually, consistently and my opinion of it only improved as it went on. I did however start wondering how they were going to let it finish. Would they get caught? Would they make it over the French border? Would they both die in a massive gun-fight with the police a la Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? I wasn’t sure any of these would satisfy me and I hate it when good films are ruined by terrible endings (blaming things on aliens being the worst cop-out ending ever). Never fear though, it’s all good and while the ending is abrupt, it felt fitting for a film with such momentum.

Destricted (2006)

Destricted is not a film. Nor is it porn. It’s both. Or neither. Or something. I’m not sure quite what it’s trying to be really. It styles itself as an art-house collection of shorts that explore where pornography and art meet. It’s very sexually explicit. But it’s not erotic. Not really.

Notice the short sentences. I haven’t really had time to digest it yet and all I have is the vague feeling that I’ve just wasted a couple of hours of my life. Some of the shorts are barely more complex or arty than simply watching someone masturbate for a few minutes. Death Valley is a good example of one of those. It’s directed by Sam Taylor-Wood who also directed Nowhere Boy (Yeah – I bet that surprised you!). A more obvious director for such a genre is Gaspar Noé. No prizes for guessing which one he directs though. It’s exactly the same as Irreversible, right down to the weird background noise and the strobe lights. It does neglect to include the violent fire extinguisher murder though so that’s something.

Another of the films is a weird comedy-type thing about Balkan folk-law that involves various people in ‘traditional’ costume prancing about with their genitals on display. While it rains. And there’s a bit of animation there too for good measure.

This is definitely a contender for the weirdest film I’ve seen this year, if not ever. And it’s got some company. Irreversible, Dogtooth, Possession, Shortbus – knocks them all out of the park. The only strong competition I can think of is Missing. Korean cake-rape does class quite highly on the weird ratings. It makes me slightly long for the sweet innocent days of thinking Requiem for a Dream was fucked up.