Revenge

Acclaimed as intelligent and profoundly innovative by critics half the world over, the first “rape and revenge” film directed by a woman (first-timer Coralie Fargeat, who also wrote the screenplay) is a conceptually questionable product that throws additional fuel on the bonfire of a sub-genre that was already controversial to start with. Roundly praised for its intrinsic originality, many critics cited the liberating nature of its core message, as if this hadn’t constituted the speculative style of rape-revenge films since day one (it’s no coincidence that this genre took off in the new social and political climate following the turbulence of the late 1960s).

If anything, the film’s novelty lies in its expansion of the intrinsic theme of her path to emancipation. What’s telling in this regard is the decision to relegate carnal violence to a secondary tier, below her subjugation through a more general power struggle dynamic. Each of the male characters then ends up symbolizing a specific type of abusive action, and the order in which they are punished by the renascent protagonist (who ends up branding a phoenix logo on her mangled abdomen when she cauterizes a wound with a red-hot aluminum beer can) reflects the increasing severity of the crimes each of the men has committed.

In other words, the fact that the rapist is eliminated relatively quickly and that the main showdown focuses instead on her cynical lover is indicative of how the woman’s main antagonist is not the man who simply commodifies her body, but the one who continues to bully her on a socio-relational level. A second aspect to consider (and it’s here where the story’s main conflict is focused) lies in the unflattering aspects of Jen’s character: she’s a shallow, immoral girl whose sexually provocative conduct intentionally puts her in an entirely different class from the old-school innocent heroines (consider the unfortunate Mari and Phyllis in “The Last House on the Left” from 1972).

As a relentless judge, jury, and executioner, Jen becomes something of a post-modern Nemesis exterminating guilty parties in a bloodbath that rises to the level of the perfect “synthesis of exploitation and feminism.” But no matter how many ways to justify it you come up with, it’s still basically an extreme feminism without any edifying or uplifting qualities. But it is a textbook example of rape and revenge, and that’s where the fault lies. While the film clearly identifies the “what” (the problem), it fails miserably when it comes to the “how” (the solution).

Technically impeccable (the extra-long sequence shot at the end is notable, as are the metaphorical extreme close-ups strewn throughout the work) and featuring convincing special effects with a sky-high splatter quotient, the film stumbles badly on the psychology front, with character motivations that are improbable to the max and a string of situations that are so ludicrous that they border on the unintentionally humorous.

Filmed in Morocco.