Closer Look: Freak Show Attractions in Abdellatif Kechiche’s Black Venus

Last week, we showed you a behind the scenes look at Abdellatif Kechiche’s Black Venus (La Vénus Noire), this week we have a first look at what would have been the common carnival setting. When you think about it – Kim Kardashian might be considered a modern day Hottentot Venus. The porn tape leak celeb might have faired better than Sarah Baartman (see wiki entry) – the central, true story character in Kechiche’s 19th century exploration on racism — but they both faced public mockery due to being endowed with their bottoms. Right behind Malick, this ranked number 2 on our most anticipated films for 2010 and we get a sense that this love for Kechiche’s work is shared by top tier fests: this will be competing in Venice and has landed a date at the NYFF. I’m crossing my fingers for TIFF. Here’s the NYFF description after the jump:

This unforgettable telling of the short, deplorable existence of the “Hottentot Venus”-née Saartjie Baartman, a slave from Cape Town who was exhibited as a freak-show attraction in early nineteenth-century Europe-Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain) delivers a riveting examination of racism. Gawked at and groped in grimy carnivals in London and, later, high-society Parisian salons, Baartman soon becomes the object of prurient fascination of French scientists, obsessed with calibrating every part of her anatomy-particularly her enlarged buttocks and genitals. Though Baartman’s life was unspeakably grim, Yahima Torres’s remarkably complex portrayal of the title character reveals not just a mute symbol of victimhood but also a woman capable of fierce defiance.