‘Revenge‘ is the feature debut of French director Coralie Fargeat, a director who doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. She was already 40+ years in 2017 when this film was made, and only this year, as she approaches the age of 50, her second film will premiere in the official competition at Cannes. Even from the title it is suggested that it is a revenge movie, although, perhaps, if I had to choose the closest genre I would rather include it among survival movies. However, ‘Revenge‘ does not sit comfortably within the limits of any of these genres. It has a quality of its own and manages to be more than just a movie in one genre or another, although the amount of action and gore will please fans of those genres. It is also a feminist film, the main heroine being a woman and the director approaching two very ‘masculine’ cinematic genres without any complex. If anyone was in doubt, everything a man can do a woman can do as well, and often much better.
The film has four characters – three men and one woman. The action takes place in a desert hunting area. Richard, who is rich and married, brings Jen, his young and beautiful mistress, to the pool villa in the middle of the desert for two days of intimacy before his two other friends arrive. However, they appear earlier than expected. After a night of partying, Richard leaves to get hunting licenses, and in his absence, one of the friends rapes Jen, while the third man hesitates and decides not to help her. When Richard returns, he tries to appease and cover up the story, but Jen, perhaps shocked, doesn’t seem willing to cooperate. Richard decides to kill her and throws her into a precipice in the desert. Convinced that the young woman is dead, the three men attempt to continue their hunting program as if nothing had happened. But Jen survives. Or perhaps the more accurate term is that she is reborn. And she will take her revenge.
In many ways the movie is predictable and the characters do pretty much what we expect them to do in movies of this kind. And yet ‘Revenge‘ surpasses in quality just about everything we’ve seen in these categories. First of all, the story is very well written (Coralie Fargeat is also the author of the original screenplay) and the action never drags. A few well-placed symbols (the apple the heroine bites into at the beginning of the story, the Phoenix bird as rebirth and healing by fire) add meaning without being excessive. The cinematography is special – both in the way the desert is shot and in the alternation of fast action shots with long shots. For example, the final confrontation in the villa is preluded by a multi-minute single shot frame from Richard’s perspective, which helps build the tension. Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz is the ideal actress for the role, and being directed by a woman adds to the psychological veracity of the character, who transforms from an object of attraction for the men in the film to a machine of survival and revenge. The amount of blood and scenes of cruelty that are the main source of horror place the film among the most violent in an already very violent genre. But ‘Revenge‘ is one of those films where the violence is motivated by the characters, and that’s why it looks credible despite the fact that the amount of blood that flows is much greater than can fit in the bodies of the four characters of the film.