Social Media Post - Revenge (Coralie Fargeat 2017)

 Social Media Post - Revenge 

SPOILER ALERT!

 The on-screen depiction of acts of violence against women, especially rape, and the victim’s response (especially if it resembles revenge) have always provoked powerful responses from the viewing public and critics. One troubling aspect, according to Carol Clover in her 1992 book, “Men, Women, and Chain Saws,” is the male audience’s sadistic and voyeuristic reaction to the suffering of the victim and her turn to avenging hero. She describes how theater audiences, of mostly adolescent males, undergo a curious identification switch during the film - first they watch and cheer at the attack on the victim, depicted in unflinching, graphic displays. Then they “reverse their sympathies to cheer the survivor on as she assaults the killer” (Carol Clover - Men, Women, and Chainsaws, p23).

Coralie Fargeat’s 2017 Revenge neatly splits these two phases and does away with much of the paraphilic rape display to concentrate on the victim’s just-as-brutal response. Early in the film,  Fargeat shows the trio of men’s “male gaze” objectifying Jen (Matilda Lutz). Later, she withholds the sadistic-voyeuristic display of the rape. Instead, the camera moves away to focus on an observer in the doorway (Guillaume Bouchède), watching in slack-jawed impotence, both implicating the audience in their desire to witness Jen’s punishing humiliation and denying them that visceral experience. Afterwards, the men throw Jen off a cliff to kill her. Not only does she survive, she transitions from victim to killer, reborn through fire as a vengeance seeking phoenix. From this point forward, Revenge becomes an uncoiled and barbed whip of anger that lashes bloody chunks of flesh from the perpetrators (and perhaps from the audience who came to revel in her debasement?). The film becomes a gory and blood-soaked orgy of violence as Jen seeks her revenge. The film’s last shot of Jen glaring into the camera could be read as a reminder that her suffering is ultimately not for anyone’s enjoyment.

 Revenge is currently streaming on Shudder–‌avail yourself of our promo for two weeks free!