Baise-Moi
(Fuck Me)

I could have easily described Permanent Obscurity as a kind of “Baise-Moi,” sexploitation/tabloid inspired story set in the East Village, NYC, a story of two down-and-out gals, both would-be artists, who set out to make a “dirty movie” with disastrous results.

But then most people would be saying, “What the fuck is ‘Baise-Moi’? It’s not even Anglish?”

What is “Baise-Moi” then?

It’s none other than the most edgy, violent “bad girls” movie ever made. (Except that it was shot on video.)

“Baise-Moi” starts off flashing its “Visa d’Exploitation” identification number. (Freeze frame on the title credits and you’ll see what I mean.)

It’s a startling film, and it shocks me that there hasn’t been a slew of similar movies made since—movies that combine elements of wild exploitation and real XXX at once.

Make no mistake, “Baise-Moi” is a porn film. But a porn film made with keen intelligence, savage irony, and a solid central arc plot.

This might be what the pioneers of “porn chic” envisioned when they spoke about the future of cinema and how XXX and mainstream films would eventually merge (something which never happened).

Really, it’s the ultimate “fugitive/chicks on the lam” flick. And about as uncompromising a film as was ever made. There’s only one other flick that vaguely compares to it, in terms of sheer misanthropic savagery, and snippets of that movie show up at one point as one of two characters, Nadine, is taking it doggy-style and half-watching it on TV. (“I Stand Alone” is the name of that other movie.)

In the history of sexploitation, other films tried mixing XXX footage with the main narrative (like “Thriller: They Call Her One Eye”).

But in those movies the porn sections were simply “inserts,” hardcore details performed by other people and spliced in. In “Baise-Moi” the main actresses are also the performers, doing all the actual fucking and sucking, sneering and raging.

It was after watching “Baise-Moi” and seeing how far the writer/director, Virginie Despentes went, that I thought that anything I might come up with would just seem mild by comparison. And that gave me courage. I didn’t have to feel like such a perv and freak. I knew I could try anything, no matter how challenging and obscene.

That’s freedom—the kind that only art can give you. And I was liberated watching “Baise-Moi.”

I’ll even admit to stealing the kernel of an idea: the scene where both women “share” a boy. (I thought that was a fun, subversive idea, playing with gender reversal and power)

The main difference between “Baise-Moi” and Permanent Obscurity?

Whereas both characters in “Baise-Moi” are sociopathic killers full of bottomless rage, my characters, Dolores and Serena, are just two naïve girls, quasi-teenagers, trying to make it. Two would-be baddass mamas, who really know less about the world than they think they do.