Last night I intercepted a journalist from a daily newspaper as he came out of a screening of
Venus Noire, a French film in competition here in Venice. He had left the film with over an hour to go, and I was curious why. Apparently, it was because the film was too long and very depressing. So it was with apprehension that I prepared to go into a screening of it myself this early this morning, wary of its 160 minute running length. Now that I've seen it, I can say I'm pleasantly surprised. Though it was a tough watch, indeed harrowing and depressing, the film was far from dull. Venus Noire is the true story of Sarah Baartman, a South African Khoikhoi tribeswomen who was taken to Europe and paraded around as a savage in freak shows during the early nineteenth century. The film looks at her life from 1910 up until her 1915 death at the age of just 26, looking at her stage performances in London and Paris, billed as the "Hottentot Venus". Directed by
Abdellatif Kechiche (acclaimed director of the 2008 film Couscous), the film is richly detailed and highly involving. It owes much also to the brave and moving central performance of Yahima Torres as the title character. Throughout the film she is required to re-enact Baartman's humiliating routines, always managing to convey the tragedy and profound misery behind her eyes. She must repeatedly crawl, snarling, out of a cage and pretend to be an uncontrollable unevolved beast, usually in little or no clothing. Torres always gets across the heartbreak and sense of betrayal at her treatment by her various white guardians as, against her will, her body is offered to the audience, who gather to feel her famously large behind. At one point she is rented out to a medical school so her genitals can be studied and measured "for science", and eventually she is prostituted wholesale. She will eventually (as the film's prologue reveals from the off) become literally objectified, with her dead body exhibited and studied by the scientific community. But Kechiche must also take some of the credit for this highly detailed and tangible portrait of the time. It is every bit as faithful and convincing in its presentation of the era as yesterday's Italian revolutionary epic, Noi Credevamo. Especially in the way it handles racial issues. Nineteenth people are not casually portrayed as racists, in fact many in London take the Hottentot Venus show to court and try (in an admittedly paternalistic way) to win Sarah her freedom. Instead many are simply shown as ignorant rather than horrid, turning away from the show when it becomes clear that the star is in distress. The film does well in depicting the fact that Baartman was, off-stage, a modern European woman, in terms of fashion and interests. She is also shown to be a capable musician, singer and dancer. The social differences between English and French society are also brought to life, with the depiction of the two country's contrasting attitudes to sexuality a particular highlight.
Whilst the film's look at race and gender issues is more immediately striking, it also looks at ideas of fame and of what it means to perform. The carrot offered by her exploiters is that she will one day be wealthy and of high social standing, able to return home freely return and start a family. Like the stars of today, she is used to make other people rich and then discarded when her usefulness has run its course, with a comparison being drawn here, between acting and prostitution. Venus Noire is not exactly enjoyable in the usual sense of the word (although it does have one or two moments of uncharacteristic levity). It is, however, a very rich and rewarding document of social history. It feels a bit like a nineteenth century version of Precious in its unflinching portrayal of an existence stained by relentless tragedy. Though sitting through it was hardly the tragedy I had been warned to expect.