Revenge (2017)

These days any movie made by a female director that has a woman protagonist dealing with men who have wronged her gets hailed as a feminist masterpiece.  Part of the problem is a growing fear that, because of the good old boy mentality not just in Hollywood but in international film making as well, saying anything negative about a movie made by a woman means one just isn't up with the times.  I'm not going to go screaming about misandry because it really doesn't matter what gender the critic is; it's either nod in unison with the group or be considered behind the times and ostracized.

Thus, in the case of Revenge, we get heaps of praise for a movie that, if made by a man, would be dismissed as trash.  That's because, as beautifully filmed as it is, the movie is trash.  It's a typical exploitation film in the same vein as I Spit on Your Grave, only a bit less lurid.  While I am sure Coralie Fargeat has kept quiet and accepted her accolades for this I personally do not believe she really had any ulterior motives than to just see how much fake blood she could spray across the screen.  

Richard (Kevin Janssens) is a married man going on an annual hunting trip.  However, he has decided to arrive a bit early at his isolated desert house to spend some time with his mistress Jennifer (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz) before the other guys show up.  However, Stan (Vincente Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède) show up a day early.  After a night of drinking Stan gets the idea that Jen's light flirting the night before meant more than it did, and the situation escalates to him raping her while Richard is gone making final arrangements for the hunt.

Richard is furious not because of what has been done to Jen, but because of how it may affect his professional life and his marriage.  After an argument she runs away and the three men pursue, with Richard ultimately deciding it's better to kill her than to face the consequences of Stan's actions.  Against all odds Jen survives and, while they originally begin hunting her, she soon begins to track them down and kill them one by one. 

The one thing I do have to give the movie credit for, and this is most likely because it is from a female perspective, is that we don't have to watch the rape happen in graphic detail.  It's enough that it happens, and the way it is handled is much more effective than showing it.  It is a problem I have with similar movies, whether they be pure exploitation like I Spit on Your Grave or more high-grade cinema like Straw Dogs.  There is often such a focus on the cause that it ventures into fulfilling some sort of erotic fantasy rather than disturbing the audience enough so that they sympathize with everything the protagonist does.  In all honesty just knowing that it happened is motivation enough without taking a good third of the movie showing it.

This definitely could have led to a feminist turn on the rape and revenge genre, but in reality Fargeat is more interested in how much blood she can spill rather than making some sort of political statement.  Yes, the men in this are disgusting, but that has been true of every movie of this type.  Jen spends a good amount of the film in her underwear, making her way through the desert with the hunting gear she has acquired - though, to be fair, Richard is naked for the final showdown himself.  

From the first scene it is obvious that Fargeat is an excellent visual director and one of her goals - making the desert one of the main characters in the movie - she achieves brilliantly.  The beginning, prior to the action, is barely tolerable, but once they go looking for her the movie delivers what it promises.  The problem is in the actual script.  The way she survives, and many of the things that happen, are beyond ridiculous.  There is suspension of disbelief, and then there is wondering if this is happening in a fantasy world or another dimension.  I, for one, was prepared to find out that everything that happens throughout a good portion of the film was a hallucination during the last few minutes of Jen's life and not real at all.  I'm surprised that didn't end up the case as that would be a typical French way of bringing something like this to a close.  

As beautifully shot, and as suspenseful as it can get, I find myself on the fence about recommending this one.  There are so many things Coralie Fargeat does right but in wanting to make her mark with her first feature film she went a bit too far, not with the violence and gore, but with how much of a break with reality the audience is willing to tolerate.  Hopefully she will learn in the future that at least some basis in reality is needed to keep the audience hooked.  

Revenge (2017)

Time: 108 minutes

Starring: Matilda Ann Ingrid Lutz, Kevin Janssesn, Vincente Colombe, Guillaume Bouchède

Director: Coralie Fargeat