One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Great Film overall

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

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.

I'm not going to summarize the movie as many of the other reviews have already done so. What I am going to tell you is that this movie is so graphic and so horrifying that it's not even worth watching. My friend and I went to see it at the Pan-African Film Festival thinking it was a documentary about the Hottentot Venus. What we got instead was an abusive dramatic film that was so disturbing it makes me question the writer's/director's intent.The film goes into graphic detail of this Black woman's abuse and it drags on long after you get the point. There are many scenes that show Ms. Baartman being abused on public display in many different venues even when we as an audience have already gotten the point about how disgusting her abuse was. My friend and I walked out on the movie toward the end. We were trying to stick around for the Q & A but the movie eventually got so disgusting we couldn't watch any more. We saw droves of people sexually abuse this woman for a long period of time to the point where we couldn't endure this garbage any longer.Also let me add, if you yourself have been sexually/physically abused, you definitely don't want to watch this film. It will trigger everything you've been trying to get rid of via therapy.

After hearing about this film through a significant amount of media attention in my neck of the woods (the Netherlands) I decided to give it a shot. The reviewers on TV and in the newspaper were talking about a story that was both moving and horrific, and that was sadly true as well.** Spoilers beyond this point **The movie starts of with the bodycast of our "black Venus" and her genitalia in a jar, which is passed around while we are shown detailed drawings of her vagina. Seriously WTF/ After that the movie tries to shock us again by showing us the performance black Venus has to do on stage. While you get it after 1 minute (yes she's in a cage, yes its demeaning, yes it's wrong) the director chooses to show it's entire length. This was the first time I checked my watch, OMG only 35 minutes in an already bored?What follows is more or less a how-to guide in how NOT to get the audience emotionally involved with your characters. Black Venus gets the chance to make a stance at a hearing in court about what's going on, claims it's her free will to participate, she's an actress yadadada. OK, cool, good for you Venus, while after seeing the stage show for the millionth time and enduring another round of shock-fire from the misguided director the movie becomes unbearable and is just as hard on you as it is on Venus. The movie drags on for a good 1,5 hours after this point. OK WE GET IT SHE IS NØT HAPPY. AAARGH!!!!I feel almost ashamed to say this but I only felt relieve when she finally dropped dead in the movie, cause we knew it was almost over.Horrible horrible horrible drag of a film, and it's up with the worst of the worst in my book.Definite NO GOBe warned!!

I couldn't disagree more with those who say that they have been abused for three hours. Yes, the film is hard to swallow; yes, a number of scenes are degrading. But, the plot is not so straightforward as some say.In fact, some characters grow more complex than they seem to be at first sight and there is a distinct gradation in the way people (i.e. : the characters who watch the show, not the spectators in the cinema) react to the exhibition of this woman. It could even be argued that the higher we move in society, the more unpleasant and distasteful their reactions become, to culminate with the absolute callousness of the leading scientists of the time.But discussing the content of the film might lead us to forget its essential quality : it is a stunning piece of cinema and especially so in the most unpalatable scenes. It might be added that, besides the performance of the leading actress, another performer could well deserve an Oscar or a prize wherever that film will be shown : Olivier Gourmet, usually an excellent actor, delivers here a world-class performance (in three languages, mind you!)