Femmes Fatales Who Prefer Sex Chased With Violence

Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s “Baise Moi” (translated by the distributor as “Rape Me”) imagines an ultra-savage and nihilistic Thelma and Louise on a deadly sex-charged rampage across France. Nadine (Karen Bach), a coked-up prostitute who strangles her fed-up female roommate, and Manu (Raffaela Anderson), a porn actress and victim of a recent gang rape, cross paths and decide to join forces in venting their rage against men.

Ostensibly, Manu is giving Nadine, who missed the last train for the night, a ride to some fairly distant locale where she is to do a drug pickup, but these girls decide they just want to have fun. Their idea of fun is to pick up men, almost exclusively young and good-looking, have wild sex with them and then, far more often than not, shoot them dead, usually humiliating and terrifying them first. What drives them crazy is that they love sex but hate men; for them sex and violence have become one. They are so angry at men for how they have been treated by them that they can no longer be satisfied by sex unaccompanied by the chaser of violence.

Lest we miss the point, Despentes, a former prostitute, and Trinh Thi, a former porn actress, in adapting Despentes’ 1995 novel, a bestseller in France, show Manu’s rape in graphic detail. Unlike a drug-addict friend with her who is also raped, Manu does not yell and scream but keeps her rage within. When her bartender brother expresses his suspicion that she has been raped yet criticizes her for not behaving more like a victim, she shoots him between the eyes, experiencing instant and exhilarating empowerment that proves contagious to Nadine when they meet. What follows in this 77-minute film is more graphic, nonstop sex and violence.

French authorities yanked “Baise Moi” from 60 screens nationwide only three days after its opening last July, declaring it pornographic. As repellent as “Baise Moi” is, it must be said that it is not mere pornography. Despentes and Trinh Thi prove to be skilled, dynamic filmmakers who imbue Nadine and Manu with psychological validity, and “Baise Moi” moves fast, accompanied by an aptly hard-driving score.

The problem is that Despentes and Trinh Thi present their heroines’ sex-and-death spree as if it were some profound revelation, which has the surely unintended effect of making their movie play like an exercise in the self-evident. Although the body count (which escalates so quickly it’s impossible to track) is phenomenally high, the notion of women venting their rage toward men in deadly fashion is not exactly new, even though the graphic connecting of sex and violence on the screen probably is--apart from porn videos, where the violence is typically directed toward women rather than men. (Despentes and Trinh Thi could argue that they’re just trying to even the score.)

In other words, it is not necessary to watch “Baise Moi” to understand the filmmakers’ point, and clearly many people would rather not submit themselves to such a soul-withering experience. For all its frank sexuality, “Baise Moi” is numbing rather than arousing, and it is disturbing to consider the possibility--probability, unfortunately, is more like it--that anyone could get a charge out of it. As has happened before in less extreme circumstances, filmmakers with purportedly serious intentions punish their viewers for watching their envelope-pushing depiction of sex on the screen by presenting it in the most profoundly negative context imaginable. What would be truly daring would be for a filmmaker to depict sex as a pleasure being experienced by ordinary people.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: Extreme graphic sex and violence, drug-taking, language. Extremely disturbing in all ways.

‘Baise Moi’

Karen Bach: Nadine

Raffaela Anderson: Manu

Manu A Remstar & Filmfixx release of a Toute Premiere Fois presentation of a Philippe Godeau production, with participation of Canal Plus. Directors Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi. Executive producer Dominique Chiron. Screenplay by Despentes and Trinh Thi; based upon Despentes’ novel. Cinematographer Benoit Chamallard. Editors Allo Auguste, Francine Lemaitre, Veronique Rosa. Music Varou Jan. Costumes Isabelle Fraysse, Magali Baret. Set designer and accessories Irene Galitzine. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes.

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