BAISE-MOI

(A.k.a. RAPE ME; FUCK ME)

BAISE-MOI is a low budget French film co-directed by Coralie Trinh Thi and Virginie Despentes, who also wrote the best-selling book it's based on.

The first third of the film continually cuts between the life-changing events of its protagonists - Manu (Raffaela Anderson) and Nadine (Karen Bach) - prior to their fateful meeting.

Manu is a streetwise kid, fed up with the macho posturing of the men in her life. While out with a female friend they are interrupted by a carload of young thugs, and dragged screaming into a vacated lot where they are both raped. Perturbed by the lack of reaction he gets from Manu, the main rapist curses her and the mob flee. Manu's friend cannot believe how she is able to detach herself from such a traumatic experience. Manu shrugs it off as men being men - "It could have been worse ... it's just a bit of cock ...".

Meanwhile, Nadine is a prostitute unhappy with her lot. We see her going through the motions with her customers. And she is decidedly not doing this for the love of sex - at one point she even resorts to watching Gaspar Noe's I STAND ALONE on a portable TV while the man behind her humps away. Well, at least she has taste! Another early scene shows Nadine's flatmate catching her masturbating to Lea Martini getting raped in the porn film PRISON...

Anyway, Manu returns home and tells her boyfriend of her ordeal. His reaction is a typically male one - one of bravado; he pulls out a gun and swears to kill the people responsible. This infuriates Manu, and in the resulting fight she accidentally shoots her boyfriend in the head. Oops! Time to flee the scene of the crime.

Nadine, on the other hand, is fed up with the constant nagging of her flat-mate and after a similarly violent confrontation, makes her way to the train station to head for a new life ... where she meets Manu. Initially suspicious of each other (well, Manu does have a gun pointed at Nadine for a while), the girls soon bond. Before we know it, they're off on a road trip that takes in casual sex, robberies, murder and a near-climactic massacre at a millionaire's sex club.

BAISE-MOI - the title translates as Rape Me – is a seething addition to the New Wave of French "shock" cinema: a short, sharp burst of punk attitude and aggressive sexual liberation.

The filmmakers employ veteran porn actresses, and their movie has been viewed as an impassioned howl of anger against the misogyny and objectification that comes with that territory. It’s fitting, then, that this infamously explicit film wallows in violence even more than it does graphic sex. The result, ironically, offers little comment on that which the film is believed to admonish; instead, it plays happily into the conventions of sexploitation cinema.

It’s true that the central characters revel in their newfound sexual empowerment, making mincemeat of their male acquaintances both in motel bedrooms and down the barrels of smoking pistols. But this exaggerated take on feminist fantasy falls rather short of the political shriek some have hailed it as being.

The film works better when taken on face value. It’s fast-paced and convincingly squalid, benefiting from ugly handheld photography and alarmingly greasy support players. The sex isn’t as shocking as perhaps it should have been but the violence – the owner of a sex club suffers the indignity of having a gun forced up his rectum before the trigger is pulled, for example – is rudimentary in an entertainingly 80s style.

Think THELMA AND LOUISE by way of A GUN FOR JENNIFER, set to a rousing punk rock soundtrack.

Originally released on UK DVD several years ago by Vision Video/Winchester Film Distribution, the BBFC demanded cuts totalling 12 seconds at the time. For this 2013 re-release through Arrow Video, those cuts (made chiefly to the early rape scene) have now been waived.

As well as getting the film fully uncensored for the first time in the UK, Arrow Video have furnished it with a pretty decent 16x9 transfer which preserves the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio.

Shot on a shoestring budget, BAISE-MOI has always had a grainy, grungy look on domestic releases. That's still the case here, but this transfer is noticeably brighter, sharper and cleaner than that found on Remstar's uncut US DVD release.

Having said that, the lo-fi filming methods dictate that BAISE-MOI still looks rather dull and murky at times. It's meant to look this way, so don't be too jarred. Alas, such is the look and feel of the film that I suspect obtaining a HD transfer capable of supporting a blu-ray release of the film is out of the question.

French audio is provided in 2.0 and makes for a solid, good proposition throughout. Optional English subtitles are written well and easy to read at all times.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page. From there, a static scene-selection menu allows access to BAISE-MOI via 12 chapters.

Bonus features are ported across from the previous UK DVD release, and remain excellent contextual accompaniments to the main feature.

The co-directors and two lead actresses offer a great deal of soundbites during an insightful 40-minute Making Of documentary. There are interesting notes made on the influence of the film's music, the small crew employed during the 7-week shoot and the censorial problems that were encountered once the film had been released. Test footage and behind-the-scenes clips are interspersed throughout. Also, check out the body language between Bach and Anderson - wow, these girls don't seem to like each other much!

An audience Q&A session recorded at a UK theatrical screening of the film is 8 minutes in length, and finds the co-directors fielding intelligent questions with well-spoken English responses.

The film's original trailer is a fast-paced, punk rock-fuelled 79-second affair.

All of the extras are presented in window-boxed 1.33:1.

Although not made available for review purposes, this release also contains double-sided reversible cover artwork and a collector's booklet containing liner notes by "House of Psychotic Women" author Kier-la Janisse.

BAISE-MOI may have been conceived as a raging howl of discontent, but it's a thoroughly invigorating low budget exploitation flick too. Kudos to Arrow Video (and the BBFC, it must be said) for getting the film released uncut in the UK.

Review by Stuart Willis