The movie is about the real story of a black woman who was the subject of freak shows in early 19th century London. It opens with a grotesque scientific convention scene where a group of physicians inspect the genitals of a woman preserved in a formaldehyde filled jar accompanied with a long, boring technical monologue which is aimed to reflect the "scientific" viewpoints of its time. Then, it is mired into an endless series of abuse scenes which get worse before the movie transforms into some kind of hard porn. The subject matter would certainly be a great story in the hands of a talented director, but in this case, there's no storytelling and the director simply makes the audience witness her sufferings in real time with repetitive freak show scenes which follow one after another and drag on until the audience is bored to death. One final word about the lead actress, Yahima Torres. Throughout her ordeal, she simply looks bored rather than disturbed and agonized with no reaction to her abusers. With blank stares, she smokes, drinks and follows what she's told to do. From the trivia, I understand she was simply picked up from the street for this role without any preceding professional career. Her inexperience could be the reason why she was so submissive to director's strange style, otherwise it's difficult to imagine any self-respecting actress would go along with such a bizarre scenario. What a sad start for a career and what a sorry piece of junk for such a great and promising material.
Review of Black Venus
