Revenge is the stunning directorial debut of Coralie Fargeat and probably belongs in the New French Extreme genre, which is a lengthy way of saying French gory horror. Many call it a rape revenge film, but as an outsider looking in, I would venture a step further, claim that Revenge transcends that genre and call it an arresting origin story for an action hero fraught with multiple levels of meaning. If any part of this description leaves you cold, this movie isn’t for you, but I loved it. Think of it as Get Out for women.
Revenge has a total of five characters: Roberto, a helicopter pilot, Richard, a wealthy attractive man who resembles Game of Thrones’ Jaimie Lannister, Jen, his mistress, and Richard’s two friends, Stan and Dimitri. Because I’m apparently more pessimistic than even a horror filmmaker, I imagined a far more cynical plot than is depicted so if you’re coming to the film expecting a setup or conspiracy, dismiss that notion right now. It isn’t that kind of movie. Richard schedules his romantic weekend getaway adjacent to the boys’ annual hunting trip so when they accidentally overlap at his secluded, desert home, everything is fine until it isn’t, and then things go downhill quickly. When rape isn’t the nadir of your day, you know that life is rough.
Visually Revenge is gorgeous to watch. Fargeat distinguishes her movies from the rest fairly early on by using framing to reflect the relationship of the characters to each other and the environment. The early scenes have an extreme focus of the foreground and only a slightly fuzzy background. The house is beautiful with the occasional color tinted windows filtering the outside view to literally highlight events. The blue of the sky, and the brown of the desert are echoed throughout the film with the characters’ wardrobe with pink, purple and red punctuations. Because there are so many close ups of faces and a hypersexualized way of filming Jen reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s movie poster art for Lolita, the transition from fun and flirty to intimidating and scary is undeniable.
Just because Revenge is visually grounded in realism does not mean that the film does not have supernatural or naturalism elements presented in a realistic way. I am not referring to the hallucinating, oneiric sequences. If I had to assign a nickname to Jen, I would use Phoenix for reasons that I will not divulge, but should be obvious to viewers who end up watching the movie, especially the way that things turn out and depart from reality if the events depicted in the film actually occurred in real life from the change in her physical appearance to the way that her body responds to her ministrations. The only logic that explains the trajectory of her experience is her relationship to nature/the environment and man/men, and while there are many Biblical elements, there are also pagan references.
While I know that Revenge is a French movie, I did not assume that all, if any, of the characters are French because they do not always speak French, but shift between French and English, which can be used as a universal language for people from different countries with various language origins. All the characters are definitely of European descent, but they are not from Northern America based on how they discuss Canada and Los Angeles as if they are exotic locales (bwahahahahahaha). Richard and Jen initially present as a post-fall Adam and Eve: naked and unashamed; however appearances are deceiving because God did not create them for the other. Richard is constantly on the phone with his wife discussing details for their children’s first communion so he is actually proud of his nakedness, not unashamed, but in disguise. While Jen is unbothered by their relationship, there is a difference between how she presents herself to men as the sexy bombshell as reflected in the music tastes that she plays when in their company versus what she prefers when she listens to music privately. She seems to believe that her beauty and sexuality are payments on a bill that she pays to exist, and she never seems shy until other characters’ begin to believe that they are owed more of a show than she is willing to give. There is an apple that Jen takes a bite from, but it is left on the counter to slowly rot from its formerly juicy, delicious original intent. I think that she has more in common with the apple than Eve though her eyes will gradually open from the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of a garden, we have a desert, which is a sign that we are far from Eden, but in the wilderness, the Devil’s territory.
From the initial appearance of Stan and Dimitri, they are depicted as hunters stalking their prey, but like me, they are not familiar with Diti, goddess of revenge, which frames Jen as they look at her. The painting reminded me of the Virgin Mary except with her hands up, don’t shoot, but Diti makes more sense. When we meet Stan and Dimitri, superficially it is hard to see how they are friends with Richard, who presents as more socially acceptable and as a paragon of a man, cheating aside. As a viewer, it was obvious that these buddies were more than oglers, and while no rape scene is easy to watch, there is a simultaneous sense of decorum in the way that it is shot. These men are prurient, but we are spared any graphic rape or consensual sex scene; however the violence is explicit, which is unusual for a European film.
Revenge displays how men can have a stunning lack of empathy except regarding how a matter inconveniences them. Stan only shows concern for Jen with respect to how it affects Richard and apologizes as if she is a part of his property. Only for argument’s sake, let’s briefly examine how these men treat their things, which includes Jen and all the other living creatures that they encounter. They definitely do not have a sense of stewardship. Stan casually tries to drown a spider with his urine. Richard sits on a light colored couch with dirty clothes and throws a dead animal oozing blood on his windshield. They are careless people with no respect for boundaries, and they barely respect each other. They are people with a lot of nerve.
In contrast, Phoenix seems to derive her power from fire and ants based on the similarities between her turning point and Selena Kyle’s resurrection in Batman Returns. I hate when movies have characters throw away weapons after a single use. In contrast, Phoenix never wastes anything. She reclaims the power of the men’s gaze by turning it on them whether it is through their use of binocular or the scope of a gun. She is a tool of vengeance not just on behalf of herself. Nature created her to implement justice for the abused environment and commands/warns, “Murder.” These men are dominionists, not stewards of nature, but she is literally in the driver’s seat now. She is burned, but not consumed by their destruction.
Revenge is a must see movie for a film buffs who enjoy the combination of artsy fartsy directing with heady goals couched in a bed of vengeance, but there are subtitles so bring your reading glasses. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time!