Really Surprised!

Purely Joyful Movie!

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

The movie is about the real story of a black woman who was the subject of freak shows in early 19th century London. It opens with a grotesque scientific convention scene where a group of physicians inspect the genitals of a woman preserved in a formaldehyde filled jar accompanied with a long, boring technical monologue which is aimed to reflect the "scientific" viewpoints of its time. Then, it is mired into an endless series of abuse scenes which get worse before the movie transforms into some kind of hard porn. The subject matter would certainly be a great story in the hands of a talented director, but in this case, there's no storytelling and the director simply makes the audience witness her sufferings in real time with repetitive freak show scenes which follow one after another and drag on until the audience is bored to death. One final word about the lead actress, Yahima Torres. Throughout her ordeal, she simply looks bored rather than disturbed and agonized with no reaction to her abusers. With blank stares, she smokes, drinks and follows what she's told to do. From the trivia, I understand she was simply picked up from the street for this role without any preceding professional career. Her inexperience could be the reason why she was so submissive to director's strange style, otherwise it's difficult to imagine any self-respecting actress would go along with such a bizarre scenario. What a sad start for a career and what a sorry piece of junk for such a great and promising material.

it is not only the pain of lead character but , in a special form, the pain of viewer. because not only racism and exploitation of a woman vulnerability are the subjects but large manner to discover, in each period, in each society, the other, the stranger, the strange, the exotic victim who inspire fake feeling of power. it is the film of an admirable actress and a necessary lesson about sins who are not absolved. it is a kind of mirror. more than touching, it is terrible. more than terrible it is honest image of a circle. and , maybe, image of a sacrifice who has as axis the force of silence. a powerful message. reflection of profound pain. that is all. and the image of a human been as ordinary tool.

Unless you are as perverted as the Marquis de Sade, you probably will not enjoy this movie. It about is the enslavement and degradation of a Hottentot woman, exploited as a sexual freak. It gets worse and worse and worse ending with her a streetwalker with VD and TB, dying alone. The DVD was behind the counter at the library, for good reason I discovered. I had to turn the DVD machine off several times. I kept hoping somehow fortunes would change for her, or at least some revenge. The movie was simultaneously degrading for the character, and for the actor Yahima Torres who played Saartjie Baartman. I could not believe a modern actress would willing play such a degrading role. She must have been tricked or bullied into it. It is one of the most depressing movies ever made. It leaves you feeling filthy to the core. It is a soft porn movie, but it is much dirtier and disgusting than any hard-core porn movie you would have seen.