Baise-moi  ★★

SIXTEEN years on Baise-moi is still controversial…but unfortunately it’s also still poorly made.

The low-budget French film was directed by two women, dubbed punk feminists by the media, and starred two adult film actresses.

It is a bleak tale of two women who react against the men who have debased them as well as society in general with a sex and violence spree that leaves dozens (from both sexes) dead and a final confrontation with police.

On its release the film was condemned by many groups for depicting actual sex on screen. In Australia, after initially receiving a restricted rating, it was protested and eventually banned by the censors. Years later it created further controversy when it was released on home video. Only last year was it first screened on television by, you guessed it, SBS.

In terms of shock value the film certainly succeeds by having actors and actresses used to having actual sex on screen doing the same thing in a film that isn’t primarily pornographic. If that’s not your thing, then you will definitely not like this.

Rape revenge films started with a flurry in the 1970s and exploitation cinema of that time was rife with titles with I Spit on your Grave, Last House on the Left and Lipstick. The trend continued in the 1980s with Extremities and Angel of Vengeance.

In 1991, the genre was brought into the mainstream to an acceptable degree as part of the cultural phenomenon of Ridley Scott’s film Thelma and Louise.

In contrast Baise-moi appears to be a considered and aggressive reaction to two societal factors. Firstly, the film-makers’ attitude to the manner that females are treated by French society specifically and, secondly, Hollywood’s general depiction of women as victims.

By showing two women as the aggressors, both in sex and violence, the film is saying women can be just as violent as men, that women are complex individuals, not a collection of cliches, and should be depicted as such and in many different ways.

It’s an admirable message that in this case gets caught up in the directors’ over-riding desire to make their point in repeatedly shocking fashion through graphic sex and violence.

All that aside, the film is let down massively by being so poorly photographed, cut and acted. I would guess the scenes were filmed in order as the acting improves slightly by the film’s end

Almost nobody involved in making the film has gone on to successful film careers, if in fact they were ever seeking to.

Co-director Virginie Despentes did make a lesbian-themed comedy in 2012 called Bye, Bye Blondie with Beatrice Dalle which gained reasonable reviews.