Arrow Video offer up a big 'Baise Moi' - Uncut DVD details

March 25th will see Arrow Video release the uncut one of the most controversial movies of recent years, when Baise Moi hits DVD. It's an uncompromising film that you will either love or hate, but I am sure you won't forget it. Roughly translated as 'Fuck me', the film is directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi and follows Manu and Nadine on a nihilistic road trip.

UNCUT and available in W-I-D-E-S-C-R-E-E-N for the very first time, Arrow Video are pleased to announce that BAISE-MOI, one of the most shockingly controversial films ever made, will be released on DVD in the UK from Monday 25th March 2013.

Sex and shooting assault the senses in this early-noughties cult classic – the name of which translates quite literally to ‘Fuck Me’ or ‘Kiss Me’ – a bloody buddy movie that’s like Thelma and Louise on acid. Banned on release in its native France as well as in numerous other territories, BAISE-MOI has provoked as much horror as it has acclaim, debate and column inches.

In Australia, the film remains strictly prohibited to this day, carrying with it a fine of up to 275,000 Australian Dollars and a maximum of 10 years in prison for sale, hire, distribution, exhibition, import or possession of the feature.

Exploring themes of gender, race, rape, class, poverty and punk rock, BAISE-MOI follows Manu (a part-time porn star) and Nadine (a hooker), as they travel from southern France to Paris in a sexually charged and hideously violent road trip. After a chance meeting the pair bond over a mutual hatred of social expectation and a feeling of common angst - follow them on their now infamous path of robbery, orgiastic lust and murder.

Co-directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, BAISE-MOI was first released in the UK on May 3rd 2002. Based on the novel of the same name, written by Despentes, in addition to the film’s controversial subject matter, much was made of BAISE-MOI’s simplistic production values.

Filmed on location in Biarritz, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille using digital video without additional lighting, the films low-budget look once again divided critics; while some thought it added to the film’s uncompromising style, others strongly disagreed, with the New York Post going as far as to state that it “looked like hell”. 

It is because of the film’s production techniques that it has recently been confirmed thatBAISE-MOI will never be released on the Blu-ray format. While some distributors may have looked to cash-in on an “improved” Blu-ray version, the original digital print of the film is not high quality enough to ever look any better than this DVD version, regardless of the medium it is shown on. Uncut and in Widescreen for the very first time, this is the definitive version of this modern-classic.  

Special features on this collector’s edition DVD release include –
 
- Original Standard Definition presentation of the film, available UNCUT and in the original 1.66:1 widescreen ratio for the first time in the UK
- Optional English subtitles
- “The Making of Baise-Moi” – a forty minute documentary featuring behind the scenes images and interviews with directors Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi as well as Karen Bach and Raffaëla Anderson, the stars of the film.
- Q&A recording with the directors.
- Original theatrical trailer.
- Reversible sleeve, featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Joe Wilson.
- Collector’s booklet, featuring writing on the film by critic Kier-la Janisse, and writer/director Virginie Despentes.