Revenge, a 2018 film directed by Coralie Fargaet, starts as what seems to be a Wes Anderson-esque take on a romantic, passionate film of two secret lovers. Jen, a youthful and beautiful French girl, hops from a chopper, lollipop in hand, the picture of feminity and ease. She is accompanied by her lover, a married man named Richard. Her secret getaway weekend takes a turn for the worse when Richard's two friends, Stan and Dimi, arrive a day early, rifles in hand. The movie, previously full of only bright and saturated colors, suddenly becomes blemished with two dark and foreign characters. Both Stan and Dimi have a clear primal desire for Jen, yet it is clear her attraction lies only with Richard. The next morning, Richard leaves for a few hours, and Stan's predatory side, lying dormant the night before, begins to show itself.
Fargaet's use of symbolism and hints of Stan's predatorial instincts give a forlorn sense of trauma to the following triggering scene. His sense of entitlement in asking Jen "Why do you not find me attractive?" forced the audience to confront the disgusting reality of sexual abuse. In a scene of complete despair, there seemed for a second a beacon of hope when Dimi walked in--until he chose to walk away, turning up the volume on the television to drown out Jen's hopeless screams, raising a question of accountability--is Dimi just as guilty for being a bystander? The film's captivating nature was the result of Fargaet's ability to simultaneously evoke a feeling of deep unease while reminding the viewer of their accountability--to leave the movie would be to ignore the deep injustices ingrained in society and exposed in the film.
As Jen runs from the horrors of the house, a tonal shift occurs--believing the sexual assault scene to be the main source of antagonism in the film, the audience is lulled into a false sense of security. Barefoot, wearing only a t-shirt, a necklace, and a neon pink star-shaped earing, Jen travels into the unknown. The scene parallels her, running for her life, and Richard, running for her, raising a question of whether he is running to save their relationship or running after her as a predator. The film is filled with facades of safety, trust, and love--all three of which are progressively torn away to reveal the characters as raw, flawed beings on the hunt for revenge at the expense of survival. Richard at first seems to deeply care for Jen, until he calls his wife and pretends, with an alarming amount of false sincerity, to care about the trivial details of her life. Likewise, we realize that Richard's "love" for Jen is nothing more than a primal lust. The theme of primality becomes progressively more apparent, with Fargaet's use of animal metaphors and the tonal shift of bright and cheery to dark--visible in the colors of the background, color of Jen's hair, and progressive dimming of saturation.
The film's ripe use of symbolism and metaphors begins with an apple: at first wholesome and innocent, as Jen eats it she becomes tainted with a gruesome reality of life or death. After miraculously surviving the fall from the cliff, Jen turns from a beautiful damsel in distress to a strong, self-sufficient survivor. She plots the demise of the three men and successfully takes them out one by one. Her first target, Dimi, was least involved in her undoing, present only as a bystander and accomplice. Stabbed in the eyes by Jen, Dimi's death parallels his sins in life: he used only his eyes to watch what was happening, and in his death his eye gouged out.
After recovering with cleverly used Piote, a beer can, and sheer force of will, Jen transformed from a ditzy girl-next-door to a strong heroine, actively looking for revenge. Her homecoming scene standing atop a cliff face, binoculars in hand, solidifies her transformation to huntress rather than prey. Revenge is a film of twisted expectations. It presents an idea to the viewers, lulls them into believing it, and strips that idea away to reveal an entirely deeper level of storytelling. The characters are each introduced with a clear stereotype: Richard, successful and powerful, represents the alpha male of today's society, Jen represents the beta female, successful only because of the man she is with and not because of achievements of her own.
As the film progressed, Richard's facade was stripped away until he was no more than a man, naked and vulnerable, stripped of his power. Jen was his inverse--at first his beautiful but ornamental eye-candy, her character grew from the picture of vulnerability to emerge victorious--she was a strong eagle, known not only for their hunting prowess but for their regality, a testimony by Fargaet's consistent use of animal metaphors to her starting a new day as a new woman--a woman stopping at nothing for Revenge.
I am not a fan of gory films. I am not a fan of horror films. But I can say, without a doubt, that I am a fan of Revenge. My issue with these types of films usually lies in the lack of substance within the plot: most of the time killing and blood with no tangible storying, appreciated solely for the primal satisfaction of watching the action. Revenge, while magnificently gory and terrifyingly suspenseful, contains a complex plot ripe with betrayal and eventual conquest. In addition to this, Fargaet's captivating style of directing a dramatic film with so few lines and characters gave it a sense of individuality--capturing foreign cinematography in a universally understood way.
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