Black Venus
(2010)
★ 6.5 IMDb · 126 votes
Year: 2010
Runtime: 159 мин
Country: France, Belgium
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Cast: Yahima Torres, Андре Джейкобс, Оливье Гурме, Elina Löwensohn, François Marthouret, Michel Gionti, Жан-Кристоф Буве, Jonathan Pienaar, Rémi Martin, Жан-Жак Моро
Plot
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.
The story of Saartjes Baartman, a Black domestic who, in 1808, left Southern Africa, then ruled by Dutch settlers, for Europe, following her boss Hendrick Caesar , hoping to find fame and fortune there. Once in London her master turned manager does nothing but exhibit her as a freak in a phony and humiliating carnival show. After a series of troubles caused by their act, Caesar, Saartje and their new friend, bear-tamer Réaux, head for Paris where once again, and against her will, she has to mimic savagery and expose her body, first in carnivals, then in the aristocratic salons of Paris, later on among the libertines and finally in brothels where she ends up being a prostitute. In the meantime, French anatomists will have taken an interest in her unusual anatomy (enormous buttocks and labia) only to declare her the missing link from ape to man. In 1815, aged only 27, she dies alone, of a combination of pneumonia and venereal disease.