Rape Me (2000)

I've just had the misfortune of sitting through this film. That it's title translates into 'F*** Me' in English was hardly promising - but I tried to keep an open mind throughout.

Within minutes - I was left baffled by a plot that barely makes sense, acting that makes daytime tv soap operas look like Oscar material, and some of the worst directing I've ever seen.

The violence within the film is highly graphic, but nothing particularly terrible. There's much worse in several critically acclaimed films that I really enjoyed - so that in itself isn't a problem for me. What is a problem is that the film's protagonists have no reason for doing what they do - other than their graphic rape at the beginning. If this film can be compared to 'Thelma & Louise' in any way, its that Themla and Louise were both likeable people who ended up in a bad situation they couldn't escape from. The leads in this film are not exactly likeable at the start of the picture, let alone when they go on a killing spree murdering anyone and everyone that gets in their way.

The rape sequence is very graphic - and certainly more realistic than your average Hollywood attempts. But there is no real explanation as to why it causes the characters to lose control - it just does. Obviously, rape is a tramuatic experience - but this film seems to just trivilise their order in an attempt to score cheap 'shock points'.

The explicit nature continues with sex scene after sex scene. Blow jobs, sex from both front and behind, standing up, lying down, on all fours - whatever your dirty favourite - chances are its in here... and seemingly for little reason other than titilation.

Chances of the film being saved by feminist undertones are not taken. Thelma and Louise took revenge on the kind of men who raped them, this women just kill whoever they feel like. Not even 'Ms 45' killed everyone she could - only men who she had an understandable fear of following her ordeal.

Certainly not a film for the faint of heart, I thought I could stomach almost anything - but watching them murder yet another person unjustly whilst having sex with yet another person who they later murder - it all became a bit too much. I didn't so much find it shocking, as entirely boring after a while. That the potentially enjoyable scenes were scuppered by violence seconds before they could've gotten interesting didn't help either!

To conclude - I learned nothing from this film. It's appalling direction and somewhat hammy subtitles (in English, possibly identical to the French - but I couldn't tell you for certain), as well as some dreadful acting from its leads... and worst of all - a jumpy nature that effectively ruined every murder - simply left me unable to find any merits within this picture. I may have seen a worse film... but I'd be hard pressed to name one!

Avoid like the plague!

Fmovies: This was not one of the infamous video nasties, but it is nonetheless a nasty video. The sex is raw and the violence is in-your-face, just like the title, which was translated into "Rape Me" in the US, but is more appropriately "F*ck Me." I noted that it was supposedly banned in it's home country, France, and it was certainly banned in other countries like Australia or heavily cut. Do not think for one moment that it was banned for sex or violence. It was banned because of the depiction of men in the film, not a single one with any redeeming social values. It is a hard film to take because all the men in it are pigs.

It is based upon a novel by Virginie Despentes who, with Coralie wrote and directed this film. This is a women's film about women's rage. If this is the way women really feel when they are p*ssed, then you better be warned.

It open with a rape that leaves nothing to the imagination. There is no doubt about the pain being felt. One of the victims, and another woman who just saw her friend killed, join together in an adventure across France. It becomes more and more violent as they go on. Not cartoonish, like Natural Born Killers, but raw violence; uncaring, unmerciful, and brutal.

The sex is real, but it is like nothing you see in porn films. The sex is driven by the women's needs, it shows the vulnerability of men during orgasm, and the men are discarded like used tissues, if they are not killed, when the women have been satisfied.

They even have a Thelma and Louise plan to die together by jumping off a cliff. Circumstances do not allow that to happen, and the ending is rather abrupt and somewhat lacking.

Men joke about PMS, but if it is anything like the rage depicted by the women who made this film, you better watch out. This rage is nothing to joke about.

Baise-moi is the second example of the recent French Graphic Rape Wave of cinema. Like a skanky French Natural Born Killers but without the talent, irony or indeed entertainment, the heavy-handed symbolism and maddening acting should have you turning off after the first 40 minutes. You continue to watch however, mainly though a fascination as to how far the director is willing to push the boundaries of good taste in order to convince us of his point. Something to do with society raping people and by-products of the system, a reflection of the perversity at the root of civilisation, monkeys with guns and Girl Power.

Joining the sensational release of Irreversible, with its centrepiece a nine minute rape scene, it could look to some that modern French cinema had found itself in a quandary, desperately seeking its next big theme in the rapidly thinning file of the last taboos. Thankfully, L'Homme du train dispelled those fears,at least for now. And maybe just two films don't make a wave, perhaps just a ripple.

However, nothing changes the fact that when the closing credits finally arrived, I was angry. Because it was rubbish. Not a patch on the glory of La Haine which dealt with a similar rage, but with far more heart and intelligence. Baise-Moi also has the worst soundtrack ever. I've got to stop wasting my life watching all these terrible films.

Rape Me fmovies. This is one of the rare movies that I did not immediately discuss with my friends after watching it. This wasn't because it had particularly entranced or impressed me. The contrary, it had given me nothing at all.

Why? Because somehow, everything was so much overdone that I couldn't take this film seriously anymore. There was so much sex and violence that I got the strong impression that the film was trying very, very hard to be offensive, as if it was aiming at superlatives in ugliness, rather than in telling a convincing tale about two women caught in a spiral of crime.

Baise-moi had been described as "Thelma & Louise with actual sex" to me. Well, it is true that the main idea is similar. There are two women traveling through the country because they've committed crimes and know that their lives are finished now, that the police are going to catch them, and they decide that now that everything's over anyway, there is no way to hold back.

Baise-moi had been described as a feminist film where women, who had suffered from male dominance in the past, exact revenge upon the men that they encounter.

This is something that I had never interpreted into this film, simply because none of these women had ever been innocent, and because they do not just kill irresponsible, violent men, but also men that they seduce themselves, men that show the sense of wanting to do protected sex. And they kill women. No, they are in no way better than the characters that they encounter and murder in hideous, brutal ways.

How easily the "heroines" decide to murder, and how much pleasure they take in it, made it absolutely impossible for me to relate to them in any way, or even take them seriously. It was just all too much. Too much sex, too much violence. I got the feeling that sex and violence were only there in order to create a superlative in ugliness, rather than in conveying a story, or making a point.

Baise-moi left me with no impression, hadn't set me thinking, because it was so far removed from any real world. So constructed, unrealistic and over the top.

There was nothing that I could do with this film, there was simply nothing about it to think about, other than "Why did they make this terrible film?" Had the intense unpleasantness going on in this film, served a purpose, I'd easily accepted it. But since I found nothing, since the film's story appeared to be not more than an excuse to squeeze as much and as ugly sex as possible into one film... I filed it away under "unnecessary torture", decided to never ever, EVER, watch this film again, and I now consider this to be the worst film I've ever seen.

Worst, not just because it really isn't my cup of tea to watch people get raped, rape, have sex in other forms and kill one another... but because whatever it was that the makers wanted to tell the world with their film... if they wanted to say anything at all... it just didn't work. And there's nothing else that could save this film, because it's also filmed in such an ugly style.

Amidst all the controversy about the porno-style sex scenes, random acts of violence, liberal depictions of drug use and so on it seems the central question has been lost - is Baise-moi actually any good? Well, the answer is "No - not really."

It starts well enough, nicely setting up the two main characters with some very well-acted, almost documentary-like scenes. Well, I say nicely - the word seems hardly appropriate when these scenes include Manu and another woman suffering a genuinely harrowing rape while Karen prostitutes herself, along with a liberal smattering of general sex, violence and substance abuse. Nevertheless, the opening is well-played out and directed with surprising flair (especially considering that this is the debut movie for both its directors).

However, when the plot kicks in proper and the two women end up on the run together the film's interest begins to drop fast. Oddly, the further out of control the two protagonists get the less exciting the story is - it gradually becomes a mere retread of countless other low-grade revenge/exploitation movies, simply with a slightly more porno feel. By the denouement, to be brutally honest, I was bored stiff (a stiffness which is nothing to do with the pornographic element of the movie, I assure you).

One of the main problems is the inherent lack of any kind of point. The beginning of the movie seems to be setting the film up as an analysis of our responses to violence - of how an upbringing in a cruel and violent environment can manifest those tendencies in ourselves - and also as a commentary on the parallels and links between violence and the act of fornication. However, it completely fails to deliver on either of these promises in the second and third acts and, increasingly, one gets the feeling the film's only reason for being is that it thinks it is cool. Unfortunately for Baise-moi, it isn't. It's a wasted opportunity. It's only real use is as a shock tactic, but even this is wasted on anyone who's seen a porn film - the violence side of it is no worse than is seen in any number of straight-to-video action/thriller flicks.

Ultimately, all there is to recommend Baise-moi is a couple of impressive acting performances, a few amusing lines of dialogue and a thought-provoking 20 minutes at the start. The rest, sadly, is nothing to get excited about.

I'm not exactly a Francophile. I love the cooking but hate the restaurants. French is one of the great languages of the world, but I find the French attitude to it xenophobic. Yet there is one thing that always stirs my passion. I admire them for it. I wish we had an ounce of it in Britain.

The best known examples of course are the film protests in 1968 – a time when everyone was protesting about everything. But they helped, indirectly, to restore the international prestige of French cinema. When Baise-Moi was banned shortly after release in 2000, there were spontaneous street protests. Now this is a bit different – the film's artistic merits or lack of them are still a matter of debate. But I take my hats off to the French. I would love to see the British protest in the name of cinematic freedom. (The ban was eventually lifted after separate protests signed by Parisian intellectuals.)

As you will already have guessed, the issues around this film are complicated. And they get worse. There is a tendency to react emotively to any highly charged sexual issues. This tendency can maybe blind us somewhat when it comes to analysing more important ones.

This is a film made by women, about women living on the fringes of society. I was once importunate enough to argue with acclaimed filmmaker Gaspar Noé (after a public screening of Irreversible) that his film didn't address the issue of rape as well as Baise Moi. I still believe that, although Irreversible is a landmark film for other reasons entirely. Most films about rape follow male-orientated story lines. They often emphasise the purely physical, violence-aspect (as in Irreversible) or have a strong woman seeking and finding redress (as in The Accused). The reality is that most rape victims are traumatised mentally and emotionally. Physical hurt as a result of violence is no less an issue, but a separate one. Although The Accused looks at some of the metal trauma, it ultimately plays out as a success story. Few rape victims take on such a masculinised determination to succeed against the odds. Odds which are still stacked against the victim.

What I liked about Baise-Moi is that it eschews the woman-survivor scenario for a more realistic picture of lasting psychological damage. Films that show the real horror of rape may discourage it more than ones that show women 'getting over it.' One of the victims of rape in Baise-Moi actually 'lets' her assailants get on with it, commenting to her friend afterwards that at least they didn't wind up dead. The rape (and the violence) of Baise-Moi convinced me that she probably hedged her bets wisely. Her lack of struggle didn't, in my mind, make her any the less a victim. And neither did the unpleasant fact that she was a part-time prostitute make her any more 'deserving.' This is something that it is not easy to live with. As a society, we have moved past the point where a girl in a short skirt acting flirtatiously (The Accused) is 'asking for it' or 'deserving of rape.' But where is our cut-off point? The marginals in society are often seen as dispensable. No-one wants to acknowledge them – least of all mainstream filmmakers. Yet they can be just as much victims.

Another thing I like about Baise-Moi is that the two girls that form a bond and go on a road trip are fully developed as characters. Like most young women, they enjoy having a good time and going after boys. But they have been mentally scarred. One of them has been brutally gang-raped a