Black Venus (2010)
Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
The true story of Saartje Baartman, a black South African worker who moves to London with her master in the early 19th century. Although she dreams of being an artist, once in Europe she is exploited as a sideshow attraction due to her large buttocks and genitalia.
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What critics compared Black Venus to
Director Abdellatif Kechiche, whose previous film “Black Venus” was also controversial in regard to the treatment of his leading lady, combines the subject matter of the new wave landmark “The 400 Blows” with the notoriety of “Last Tango in Paris.”
The doors were scheduled to open at 6:00pm for the 6:30pm press screening of the three-hour-long French competition film “Blue Is the Warmest Color” by Abdellatif Kechiche (“Black Venus,” “ The Secret of the Grain ”).
The technique again pays terrific dividends in Adele: Chapters 1 & 2 (which screened in Cannes with the title Blue Is The Warmest Colour ), his return to the present after the period digression of 2009’s Black Venus .
Filmmaker Kechiche, whose previous movie was Black Venus, the ironic cross-cultural story of an African woman abused in 19th-century Europe, is well aware of the pitfalls of "civilization."
For a man who's no stranger to making lengthy sagas (his last film, 2010's Black Venus, is only 21 minutes short of Blue's 187-minute length), Blue appears to be his magnum opus—and I wish I could say that's a good thing.
It’s disappointing that Mr. Kechiche, whose movies include “The Secret of the Grain” and “Black Venus” (another voyeuristic exercise), seems so unaware or maybe just uninterested in the tough questions about the representation of the female body that feminists have engaged for decades.
Despite some critics and viewers championing The Woman as a serious feminist film, it barely stands its ground before such works as Abdellatif Kechich's Black Venus and Brilliante Mendoza's Kinatay.