For her first film, Coralie Fargeat signs an impressive survival in the middle of the desert that looks towards the B series. A true genre film, Revenge features the sulphurous Matilda Lutz struggling with a macho and violent male trio, who rapes her. What follows is a simple and effective story of revenge, which is based on sumptuous staging effects.
Revenge : a series B not headache
Like this brainless genre, Revenge has a scenario that is based on a postage stamp. The interest of the film is not so much based on its story, but more on its staging. With a big shot of a fat and imposing electronic soundtrack Coralie Fargeat offers a sublime visual, playing on the warm colors of the desert and canyons. The style and form are at the rendezvous thanks to a precise, modern and rhythmic staging. Sublime landscapes, magnified naked bodies, bright colors, neon lights, all wrapped in this catchy soundtrack, where the low impulses of bass punctuate the twists and turns of this gore adventure. In this warm villa, female and male bodies are unveiled in their simplicity, in their naked beauty, in a rocky universe that echoes a return to primary instincts. Bloody, Revenge has a dose of hemoglobin that would make Tarantino euphoric, and that completes this rapprochement of bodies. Thus the flesh is at the center of this story to such an extent that the comparison to Grave is sometimes inevitable.
Very violent, Revenge offers a few bloody moments, and a gruelling chase in an inconvenient desert. The codes of horror are obviously respected. In a hostile universe, the prey will become the hunter, in a classic reversal of situation, sadistic pleasure for the spectator, full of empathy for the protagonist, victim of male violence. With sometimes a lack of originality in its treatment, Revenge relies entirely on the effects of style, on the beauty of bodies, sets and images. Gorgeous photography, some clever artistic close-ups, a very hypnotic soundtrack and a stunning lead actress.
The revival of French genre cinema?
After Grave, released a few months ago, we perhaps hold here another element of the renewal of genre cinema in the French landscape. Coralie Fargeat, like Julia Ducournau, takes real risks and offers a work that goes beyond the usual shackles of French cinema. The comparison between the two films is possible: a film that salutes the human body, closer to flesh and blood, but also closer to women. A strong feminist work, carried by the sublime Matilda Lutz, worthy heiress of Lara Croft. Revenge also speaks of female emancipation, it seeks to oppose the sexes and its clichés, demonstrates that physical strength is worthless, that performance does not belong only to men. Coralie Fargeat also addresses sexual issues that will inevitably echo the revelations #Metoo and #Balancetonporc, the accusations that splash some of the Hollywood bigwigs. Revenge is a muscular, powerful and violent feminist film. A magnificent survival, an exciting rise in power, to the visual and sound orgasm, in this uncompromising conclusion to the image of this sadistic and gory work.
Revenge is the worthy heir to Grave : a gory and violent feminist genre film that takes risks. The feature film is not free of flaws but appears as a real breath of freshness in the landscape of French cinema.
