Black Venus

2010

2h 42m

Drama

List

100%

Tomatometer

5 Reviews

62%

Audience Score

250+ Ratings

Saartjes Baartman, a black worker, moves to London in 1808 to find fame and fortune. Once there, her manager takes advantage of her, placing her in a freak show due to her enormous buttocks.

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Laura Clifford

Reeling Reviews

Tunisian born...director Abdellatif Kechiche ("The Secret of the Grain") has been making films about the immigrant experience in his adopted France, all involving theatricality of one form or another.

Rated: B+

Jun 30, 2012

Full Review

Simon Miraudo

Quickflix

It may not cover any new ground (we've seen this all before in The Elephant Man and even King Kong...), but Black Venus certainly gives the audience more than enough time to ponder the larger questions it raises.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 17, 2011

Full Review

Thomas Caldwell

Cinema Autopsy

Rated: 3.5/5

Aug 13, 2011

Full Review

Joseph Proimakis

Movies for the Masses

full review at Movies for the Masses

Rated: 4.5/5

Apr 13, 2011

Full Review

Kent Turner

Film-Forward.com

Voyeuristic and powerful

Rated: 3/4

Mar 13, 2011

Full Review

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Audience Member

It had a good message but it was difficult to watch, to the point where I had to distract myself from what was happening on screen.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/03/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A devastating and emotionally exhausting film that exposes without concessions (almost like a documentary and with the use of extreme close-ups) the real-life suffering of a poor woman brutally exploited, humiliated and treated like an animal for other people's pleasure.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A descent into the hell of human exploitation.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The best true story movie that I've seen. It has so many emotional scene bajar musica gratis mp3

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

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Audience Member

At first I thought that this film was utterly racist. Mind you not racist as in openly saying that black people are inferior, on the contrary it tends to depict every single white character as a lustful, small-minded, violent vulgaroid. No, this film appears racist because it shows the lead character as purely the object of other people's plans and ambition. She seems devoid of any form of will for herself. She is never shown taking the initiative, not even to buy a single hat! She lets her life turn into a pathetic spectacle be it on stage or in the real life, like in that scene in the London court room where she is paraded in from of yet another audience. All along she is not more active than an old rag carried by the wind. But the film is not racist, it is simply misanthropic, it's not that the director despises the black character particularly, he apparently hates everybody equally. Yet the character is obviously a rather gifted person full of energy and curiosity. She's objectively admirable even. She can speak at least four languages, she volunteered for a trip that would take her on the far side of the world, she obviously must have had plans, things she wanted to do after her business venture. But no, for some reason, she's deprived of that personality. This form of complete alienation coupled with the utter vulgarity of the rest world makes for a gloomy philosophy barely worth of an adolescent going through a passive agressive teenage crisis. Around her the world is crumbling (the scenes in Paris are shot the very same month as the battle of Waterloo which brought about the collapse of Napoleon's empire), but she and the director are really not interested. I could see no love in the camera's eye, which is particularly sad considering that the cast in general was excellent. Andre Jacobs in particular is magnificent. To his credit, I have to say that the director is able to make the audience share completely his general hatred for the world around him. After almost three hours of being hammered with soft-core sadistic porn on repeat and seeing close ups of ugly faces and unappealing naked bodies, I too hate the whole of human kind, Afrikaans, French, Hottentot, English, all of that slimy, stinky, sweaty lot! At the end of the film, I felt nauseous even though I couldn't say if the cause was the constantly moving shoulder-held camera or the disgust inspired by Kechiche's cold outlook on life.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/10/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Un biopic interessant et bien realise qui peche toutefois par sa longueur. Kechiche a visiblement souhaite que le spectateur vive, endure meme, les humiliations subies par la Vénus Hottentote. Mais l'effet voulu finit par s'inverser et l'empathie cede la place au soulagement quand Sarah finit par mourir.... on est presque content nous aussi d'en finir.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/26/23

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Abdel Kechiche

Director

Yahima Torres

Saartjie Baartman

Andre Jacobs

Hendrick Caezar

Olivier Gourmet

Réaux

Elina Löwensohn

Jeanne

François Marthouret

Georges Cuvier

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Synopsis

Saartjes Baartman, a black worker, moves to London in 1808 to find fame and fortune. Once there, her manager takes advantage of her, placing her in a freak show due to her enormous buttocks.

Director: Abdel Kechiche
Screenwriter: Abdel Kechiche, Ghalya Lacroix
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Streaming): May 24, 2018
Runtime: 2h 42m

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