Alexis Hopper
CineTrek #2
Revenge
In the 2018 film "Revenge" directed by Coralie Fargeat, a young woman by the name of Jen, portrayed by Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, is whisked away for what seems to be a passion filled getaway with lover Richard, played by Kevin Janseens, a married man. Richard's two friends, Stan and Dmitri, show up unannounced for a hunting trip leading the once romantic weekend down a different path. Problems only escalate when Richard leaves Jen alone with his two colleagues and Jen is raped by Stan. Dimitri has the opportunity to stop him but precedes to ignore to vulgar act leaving the audience grinding their teeth for poor Jen. At this point Richard comes home to an upset Jen who threatens to tell his wife about his affair if he doesn't call a helicopter immediately to which he slaps her across the face. Jen results in fleeing the scene leading the three men on a chase after her. The chase ends in a cliffhanger, literally, ultimately ending in Richard pushing Jen off the edge of the cliff to a visually gruesome impaling of a tree stump at the bottom of the mountain. And this is all in the first fifteen to twenty minutes. The bulk of the film is the transformation of a rape victim turning revenge on men who deserve what they get. This film is rich with symbolism and metaphors paralleling with tight shots of blood and thrashed flesh and graphic sounds that can make an audience member gag on sight (I know I did!). Yet Fargeat's ballsy frame choices lead this movie to a edge of your seat, engaged until the last moment kind of movie.
One of the most pleasing feelings in the world is not expecting much or being in the realm of the unknown before watching a film and proceeding to walk out completely speechless. Fargeat captured the element of unpredictable, unimaginable and unforgettable in this thrilling story of revenge. There are elements and symbols and choices made in this movie that could be talked about for pages and pages but one aspect of the film stood out above the rest. The choices in color, costuming, frame choice and all things production is what kept me thinking about this film even days after I saw it. The choice of having only four characters to tell this story was clever. It allowed to audience to really capture the 360 transformation of all the characters. The three men are represented as the stereo typical high powered males. Dumb and dumber take their form of power in form of sexual abuse towards the female protagonist and are later ripped of this role by being darkly murdered by Jen herself. That of which the most interesting being Dimitri whose eyes are gouged out with a knife symbolizing his seeing but not saving act in the beginning scenes. Richard is at first portrayed as this millionaire eye candy who has the world at his finger tips but at the end of the film we see him struggling to keep his life, stripped naked symbolizing his vulnerability and eventually killed by Jen. Jen, easily the most complex character, is represented as a ditsy, sexy object in the beginning of the film. As her story unfolds she becomes this Mad Max Furiosa-like, badass figure that ceases her revenge until the very last frame where she turns to face the audience in conquest. In conclusion, this film was horrifyingly terrific in the sense that you wish you did not love the gore as much as you do but you just simply cannot help yourself.
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