Venere nera

Was this film 3 hours long or fourteen? Kechiche takes us across borders (Africa / Europe, Dead / Living, Savage / Civilized) in a movie that has the gravitas and sensual weight of a kind of stations of the cross. The "Venus" is our Christ, suffering for and as the direct result of our sins, chief among those the blindness we call racism. Potently, even explosively mixed with virulent sexism, racism shapes the ever more horrible experience of the film's subject, as she is reduced (figuratively and then literally) to an object. The film is gorgeous, infinitely wise about the costs of being marked (trapped in the legibly different body), smart about the role that money plays in the ongoing betrayal (if Judas saw this film he'd really feel rooked: the point is not to sell out Christ, the point is how many times you can--for an increasing price--take trust to market), and worth every minute of horrified attention. Then--you ask-- why an "8"? Of course we are (as the film is eager to point out), as spectators, aligned with all those who want to look at this...complicated site of excitements--but we are also (in tight close-up for the tears that always start in Yahima Torres' left eye) vaguely miserable with her (growling at the end of a chain is okay, being touched is--at first--not) and then...nowhere. Who was she? What did she (aside from bright red leather gloves and a tres joli hat) want? There's something about this film, in other words, that seems just about as hard and cold and stiff as the plaster cast of the Hottentot, which seems always just on the verge of coming to life.

one of films who impress for its message. because it is not exactly a film about racism, prejudices, past or steps of science but about the other's position in society.honest.about cold. a black woman and her shows. the freedom as convention. the show and its nuances. a film who propose not a solution or sides of hidden events. only a start point for understand the manner to use the people as objects. and the complicity of the society to this cruel game.so, the virtue of the film is to reflect a ball of attitudes about the people. the selfish, the cruelty, the greed. who are parts of human nature. the axis of this delicate construction - the performance of Yahima Torres. the pillars - the music, dialogues and the air of the different scenes who becomes almost perceived by viewer. a film who could be useful. not only as historical testimony but as demonstration of a strange form of profound sin .

I finally watched this movie earlier today with a sorrowful heart after first hearing about it a couple of years ago. hard to get it here in Indonesia on DVD, finally got it on two split You Tube downloads.

Yes this is not a film for the faint hearted, it is extremely graphic and harsh in its direction to say the least and certainly long at 2 hours 40 minutes (comparable with the Hobbit which I saw on new Years Eve).

The film is an artistic portrayal of a dignified South African tribal woman who is abused and misled once she arrives first to England and then later to Paris. However, it lacks artistic direction and balance. Not a contradiction in terms exactly.

for example, the opening scene shows her being exhibited in a medical seminar and the end of the movie displays her physical remains which would later be put in a Paris Musueum. My point is that the Director could have taken more attention to detail and put the lady into a greater prospective, perhaps a prequel to the main part of the story (the recent Johnny Depp movie 'Dark shadows" a case in point) showing the lady in her tribal land and how she met the Doctor before arriving to England. The explanation in the movie is all too bland and passed over for the most part. The same applied for the ending although there were some explanatory subtitles and compensating visual glimpses of when she was returned to South Africa.

What we see in this film is no different from what still goes on in our world today but in a different way. We go-global in order to see the very thing that this humble woman was subjected to and we pay to see it, sometimes on the internet - animals as well as humans - and it is only perhaps in western countries that there are anti-voice against the abuse in circuses.

We should watch this film and want to be shocked. Unlike the spectators shown throughout the film, we have the benefit of a greater education and enhanced knowledge but abuse such as Saartje Baartman is shown to endure in the movie, goes on to this day.

There was a lack of cohesion at times in the transition from going London to Paris and then later when Saartje found herself in the Brothels. Yes, she drank and smoked and was inevitably sensitive and temperamental given her real life role play but this is indeed an extraordinary film about an extraordinary woman who is extraordinary for her courage and determination and not so unordinary from any other woman except for her buttocks and her labia, according to the medical scientists.

I certainly enjoyed this film more than the "Hobbit' which bored the pants off me (except for the special effects) and yes 'Venus Noire' is slow and often repetitive but I can share empathy with the Director and in an unkind, cruel, uncomfortable way, this is entertainment.

On a general note, there is no swearing or offensive violence, despite the harsh treatment Saartje Baartman endured while away from South Africa. Yes, she is mostly naked for large sections of the film and there are a couple of later scenes in Paris where she is in a sexual situation but apart from that, this is not a film for a sexual voyeur and don't expect to see flashes of an unusually large labia because you will not.

The standard of acting in this film is excellent. I may be wrong here but this is a French film and so good sub-titles in English or language of your choice are important. I suggest that there are a lot of other movies out there who will shock and offend you a whole lot more than this one.

It is impossible to rate this film because it is about the subject inexplicably painful and graphic, and still absolutely worth seeing, no matter how difficult it is. It is about sexualized racism. And it says a lot about white man and a white Europe. We still live in that world. This film make people think. I cannot recommend it to anyone sensitive, still I have to praise the director and the lead actress. Knowing that Abdelativ Kechiche made also two other great movies, Kus-kus and Blue is the warmest color, I understand his poetics, and this film falls in that category of his great films as well.

Of course, from the first minute of the movie, we know how a black African woman will be treated in white Europe 100 years ago, just probably, especially if we are from white Europe, we did not have a clue about the extent and details of how racist gender abuse looks like, and what is the link to the presence. Now we know, and we cannot pretend that we haven't seen this film.

This is the story of the black woman in the early 1800s, shown on cheap varieties as the so called Hottentott Venus. She behaves like an animal, is treated on stage as an animal and is regarded as such by the rude audiences.

She isn't a slave. Not technically, but the agreement with her employer is of course on his terms. There are also other forms of performances. This woman also acts in front of Parisian high society and not at least in front of the scientists of the time, who find resemblances with the orangutan.

What her employers is exploiting is not just this woman; they also exploit racism and the different kind of audiences let their racism be exploited. There are of course money to be made from prejudices. 200 years ago and now. This our lesson.