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Baise-Moi

Baise-Moi

List Price: $29.95
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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pointless
Review: I watched this movie, having unfortunately bought into the hype. However, after 78 minutes I was left thinking what was the whole point. Yes, its a movie about revenge - but how jaded is that idea? The two protagtonists seemed to stumble from one scene to the next - the film didn't seemed to 'flow' well. It was as if the producers were trying to shock their audience with each scene. I was not horrified, as some people have been, by the anti-male udercurrent in the movie (all it portrayed was that some women hate men. Wow!). However, I would not view this as some masterpiece of arthouse cinema. The violence was not as graphic as Tarrantino has been (especially in Dusk Till Dawn, where he was particularly gratuitous) Similarly the violence was not as random as Natural Born Killers. The sex scenes were annoying and pointless (all they showed was that men are only thinking of sex. Again, wow!)
Maybe I have become completely desensitized, but this movie was irritating and annoying.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A WASTE OF TIME, ENERGY, AND INTELLECT...
Review: hardly worth a star... basicly a "film" whos whole marketing and publicity strategy was based on its penetration scenes and violence.the story is a complete bore along with its characters.actually, the movie is worse than boring, its frustrating in the fact that it it is based on a concept that could have easily said something worthy and meaningful even with its trasparent use of violence and "hardcore" sex scenes, but instead takes the easy road of trying to "shock and awe" its audience.
dont buy into the hype of the film, you'll only be left empty and wanting your money and time back that was so brutally wasted on this.your time, money, and intellect is much better spent on gaspar noes "IRREVERSIBLE".granted your love or hate of this film ,at least you'll walk away feeling something more substantial than what baise moi (dosen't) provides on every level.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Unpleasant and unapolagetic
Review: To begin on the only positive note, Baise-moi is a useful movie for those who want to keep au courant with French street slang. Otherwise it's difficult to find a single redeeming feature in this appalling farago of violence and ennui. Production values are poor (it was shot on digital video, resulting in a flat and badly-lit appearance), the plot line is simplistic explicit violence, and the protagonists are boring shallow people.

Baise-moi is an example of film making at its worst. The so-called "justification" for a prolonged and vicious shooting spree is the rape of one of the protagonists, and the occupation of the other (a prostitute), coupled to a bad case of Euro-pretentiousness. Nowhere is there an iota of compassion; neither by the two destructive divas nor by the film makers themselves. Ordinary people are regarded simply as props to be destroyed.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the level of sexual repression in the American movie industry is that any film involving nudity or sexual acts is immediately branded as "erotic." For example, the terribly poignant "Yo Mama y Tambien" was billed that way, whereas it was anything but a sex romp. Likewise Baise-moi is marketed as a disturbingly erotic movie whereas it is simply disturbing. This is a movie that will make you feel repulsed, that you will wish you had not seen, and that may lead you to reconsider any Francophilia you may formerly have harbored.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shockingly brutal... but not much else.
Review: Me and some friends were bored one afternoon so we decided to rent a film. The cover of Baise Moi caught our attention, as did the caption of it being one of the most controversial films of its time. Well, controversial it sure is.

Shot in French (though obviously with English subtitles for the edition you'll buy here), this film is very gritty and dirty. There is no Hollywood romanticism surrounding it, no happiness and no sense of idealism. However, the whole film is so overly violent and so sexually gratuitous that it comes across as nothing other than an cheap action film and a cheap pornographic film melded into one so that the fat slob watching it doesn't have to get off his backside to change the video.

What surprised me even more was that film was supposedly "anti-porn". Clearly I have missed something somewhere. Would a film that was "anti-porn" really have a 60 year old woman fellating someone in the foreground while important characters have a conversation in the background? Would a supposedly "anti-porn" film really show a close up a woman having her period over a sink? Tasteless and disgusting are the sort of words I'd use, and I'm not easily offended (well, I wasn't offended, I just felt the whole thing was needlessly graphic for the sake of it). Whatever message that was intended to be given here is completely lost due to nothing short of poor film-making.

The storyline follows two women (a prostitute and a rape victim) who go on a rampage sleeping with and/or killing nearly every man they meet. It is in fact a very weak storyline, with nothing else happening other than tasteless sex scenes and poorly shot moments of violence. It sticks in your mind, but even then that is partially due to how cheap it was.

I suppose if this wasn't as grainy and cheap as it was it would have no effect. But a films lasting effect shouldn't simply be based on graphic sex scenes, rape and murder. It should be in its message. Fight Club had that, as did American History X. Quite simply, Baise-Moi does not. I could live with the cheapness if it was essentially a good film. I'd have no problem with the disturbing nature of some content if there was a message (or at least, something entertaining) to be found within it.

But truthfully, regardless of the random shootings and close ups of fellatio, masturbation and penetration, this is a boring and witless mess devoid of any intellectual or entertainment value. In fact, the only reason it gets two stars rather than one is because the graphic content does stay in your mind for some time afterwards. In that respect, I figure the film-makers achieved something.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WOW
Review: A marvelous blend of "Pulp Fiction" and "Thelma & Louise" in French! Terrific film, well acted, well written and ending as it must! This film now holds the #2 spot behind my all time favorite, "Blue Velvet".

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nasty and rather pointless
Review: Here is a premise for a possible movie. You all saw "Thelma and Louise" and some of you got all worked up about how cool and liberating and all that sort of stuff you thought it was. But who are we kidding? - that was just pure Hollywood nonsense. If something like that were ever really to happen, we wouldn't get this sanitized fantasy but something much less pretty to look at. So how about making a movie that rubs its audience's face in a far more grittily realistic variation on the theme and see how cool and liberating we think that is?

That might be the premise for an interesting movie. But "Baise Moi" emphatically is not that imaginary interesting movie. Most saliently, that imaginary movie probably doesn't rub it's audience's face in the sort of hardcore sexual imagery that leaves us in no doubt why porn stars were cast in the central roles: more conventional actresses would most likely not have agreed to quite so many e.g. close-up shots of fellatio unless perhaps they were persuaded that some very serious artistic purpose was at stake. Which it pretty evidently is not. The only purposes this material can really serve here are cynical ones: either that of pornographic titillation or the courting of a succes de scandale for a movie unlikely to succeed on any other ground.

So if you dislike watching fellatio in close-up, there is little merit to this film that might trump that distaste. If you like watching such things, you would be well advised to go watch an honest old fashioned porno movie instead. For this is certainly not pornography but something quite distinct, far more pretentious but comparable to some pornography at least in its brutality and its stark denial of humanity. I think what the makers of this film would say is that there is all the difference in the world because pornography's denial of humanity is part and parcel of the whole late capitalist patriarchal deal or some such thing while this movie is something far more "transgressive" and so somehow admirable or some such thing. But now who are we kidding?

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A failure
Review: having recently watched an interview with the filmmakers in the documentary "Bad Girls" my interpretation of Baise-Moi was confirmed. yes, as some reviewers have pointed out, this movie is a comment on a the exploitation of women in the sex-industry and, in some ways, is supposed to be "anti-porn" ("Pornography" interpreted in the Dworkin sense). while i appreciate what the filmmakers were trying to do with this film i did not, however, appreciate the film because it ultimately failed at communicating this message.

while some of the more film-trained audience would be able to decipher the message of Baise-Moi, most viewers--as many of the reviews here prove (most are convinced the movie is, indeed, porn and have judged it as either "good" porn or "bad" porn)--have been led to believe that the film *is* a porn flick and rate it accordingly. if a film can't communicate its message it ultimately fails as a film--especially when the directors have ended up creating a movie that supports the very industry they intended to criticize. indeed, the directors may be intelligent people but they are definitely *not* intelligent film makers. and this has nothing to do with the grainy look of the film it has to do with the entire way the film was carried off because, at the end of the viewing, most viewers are left feeling that they've just watched a porn and have to try very hard to find some critical message

(believe me, i watched this film with some feminist friends of mine and i was stupid enough to argue [unconvincingly because i did not really like the movie] for the film's supposed "feminism"; they immediately claimed that was a typical male reaction to a film that they viewed as pro-porn.)

so while i admire the intent of the movie i do not admire the movie in-itself. its a poor attempt at social criticism which ends up reenforcing the very problem it attempts to reveal.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't do it !
Review: Weak. The sex scenes weren't good enough to qualify it as a porn flick. And the script was too weak to carry off any kind of a storyline. At least not one worth watching all the way through. The only reason I did was because I'd already spent the money and I hoped it would get better. It didn't. I DO think Jerry Louis is funny, but I still don't understand the french.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: disturbing??? what did i missed?!
Review: there is absolutly not a single shocking or disturbing scene in this film!...and i mean it.....have you ever seen a porn flick?..there's penetration on them right?...well here you go ....lets say this is a xxx film with a good plot. The only violent moment in the film is the rape scene.....wich is pretty violent till they show the penetration....they spoiled it for everybody when they showed it!.....after showing it you realize is just porn...so your mind does not create the horror of imagining what she's really goin through. come on people this is just a undercover porn.nolthing else and there is nothing in here that you haven't seen in other movies......i mean the movie is not erotic at all....because the xxx scenes are completly tasteless.....the action and the shooting is bad..but the story is good....i could say that!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: one has to ask why?
Review: This is certainly a very rough-to-watch film. One is spared the blood spattering of the bullets entering bodies, but one is spared very little else. Obviously two very angry women. I would think that the graphic nature of their anger could have been presented in a more palitable manner. On the reviews shown on the DVD, both the positive and negative reviews were shown, and that is an honest plus. If a person wanted to view a film of two angry women then I would recommend Butterfly Kiss; two English women on a journey of destruction with better acting and far less graphic.


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