WARNING: This post contains mega spoilers for Revenge
TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains reference to rape and sexual violence
In film and television, rape can often be used as a tired plot device, so whenever a horror film with a rape/revenge theme is released my heart normally sinks and I expect the worst. Therefore, it took a while to build up the courage to watch Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge (2017), but like my also very belated viewing of I Spit on Your Grave (1978), I’m glad I dived in. First off the bat I just want to say that I bloody love this film. It is a visceral, strange and ultimately very satisfying watch. It is also a film rich in symbolism and societal discourse. Revenge is a powerful examination and distillation of why rape occurs and it delivers a blistering attack on rape culture within our patriarchal society. The film also attempts to revise the tropes of rape revenge movies through the nature of the protagonist Jen’s vengeance suggesting that the ‘victor’ is the one who accepts and synthesises elements of the masculine and feminine within themselves. Finally, the film challenges us to consider an alternative to the status quo and the bloody mess we find ourselves in.
The Theatre of Feminine vs. Masculine
Revenge opens with a ‘small dot on the horizon’ shot reminiscent of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Apocalypse Now (1979) slowly revealing a helicopter arriving at a luxurious modernist home in the desert. This allusion sets up the context for a great conflict, but this time it is not a historical war, but an ahistorical battle ‘between the sexes.’ The desert setting also suggests that we are now in a liminal space – an arena where boundaries can be tested, ideas contemplated and truths confronted.
In the next opening shot the antagonist Richard’s reflective sunglasses crowd the screen and within them we first observe Jen, his mistress and the film’s protagonist. This suggests that this part of the film will be seen through a stereotypically ‘male’/dominant gaze and that we are in a deeply patriarchal space. Jen is immediately constructed as an ‘ideal’ heterosexual male fantasy. She appears sexually compliant, conventionally beautiful and barely speaks. During these scenes the camera’s gaze also focuses heavily on Jen’s physicality, specifically swirling around her bum and genital area. In fact, Richard refers to her bum as a peach (foreshadowing the motif of Jen’s connection to nature) and a little alien, warning us that perhaps he doesn’t really view Jen as a human being at all. Additionally, later on Richard speaks to his wife to discuss the details of a Communion dinner menu. He seems to be at ease with the incongruity of having an affair whilst purporting to be a supportive husband and father. But I don’t think the film judges Jen’s role as ‘mistress’ or shames her for her sexual choices. Jen seems like a woman caught up in a doomed relationship. Richard will not leave his wife, allegedly because of the kids, but also because why would he ruin having ‘the best of both worlds’? Richard, and patriarchal society, appears to be very comfortable with this duplicity.
In order to foreground the discussion about rape and patriarchal society the film utilises symbols and spatial signifiers typically associated with the masculine and feminine (and consequently assigned binarily to men and women). For example, the scene of the crime – the house – is white, angular and cold, adorned with spiky, priapic plants. It is the ultimate masculine space filled with hyper masculine signifiers – wrestling on the television, smoking cigars and watching motor-racing. Crucially, the house’s true purpose is to be a base for the men to hunt game with outlandishly large guns suggesting a masculinity that requires complete domination over nature and the feminine to prove its worthiness/manliness. A picture of the Virgin Mary hangs prominently in the living room representing religion within patriarchal society (in this case Christianity) which helped to create institutional sexism and misogyny whilst simultaneously utilising ‘idealised’ images of women.
If the house is a masculine symbol, it is telling that it is plonked right on top of the great canvass of the desert as the film codes the desert as a feminine space. It is part of nature that is wild, chaotic, unknowable and potentially dangerous. Later even with a map the men cannot make sense of the landscape and/or conquer the desert and find Jen. The film explicitly connects the desert/nature as feminine and consequently with women, through Jen and her body. This connection is initially foreshadowed just before the other antagonists Stan and Dimitri invade the narrative. Jen eats an apple linking her not only to nature, but to creation myths (Eve in Eden) and also previously side-lined female Biblical figures (Lilith as the ‘original’ Eve or indeed the serpent). It also accurately predicts, like the Abrahamic myth, she will soon come in to knowledge of a disturbing kind. Later Stan spins the apple and as it rots we begin to understand that Jen is in danger.
Jen is also constantly linked to the animals and insects within the desert, for example the bloody ants after her fall, the urine-drowned spider and later the eagle/phoenix. However, Jen actually isn’t the only character connected to nature since Stan is equated with a lip-smacking lizard, although perhaps this is more to signal that Stan/lizard will be Jen/eagle’s prey. Additionally, the substance which keeps Jen alive and allows her to rebuild her damaged mind and body is peyote – a psychoactive drug that is obtained from nature, not synthetically created in a lab. Of course, utilising this type of dichotomy/binary can be problematic because it moves into an essentialist view of womanhood and the territory of biological determinism e.g. woman equals nature/the body, man equals civilisation/spirituality. Thus, woman cannot represent civilisation/technology (and vice versa) and must be attached only to their ‘biological’ roles. However, as I’ll argue later, I don’t think the film is necessarily endorsing this view. In fact, it seems to be suggesting that only through a synthesis of the feminine and the masculine can one triumph.
The Dynamics of Power in Rape Culture
The surreal landscape, colour-saturated cinematography and minimalist dialogue allows the film to take on an allegorical dimension which suggests the characters represent ‘types’ rather than conventional, ‘fleshed out’ characters. This can be seen clearly in the three main male characters. They represent the dynamics of power which allow rape to be perpetuated and underreported within our culture and society. For example, Stan, the actual rapist, clearly does not understand the concept of consent and believes he is entitled to Jen’s body because he finds her attractive and mistakes her sexual self-awareness for sexual availability.
In the morning after the pool party with Richard absent, Stan behaves in a stereotypical ‘m’lady’ fashion – acting in a ‘gentlemanly’ and over attentive manner, but touching her body without consent to rub in suntan lotion. Earlier Jen was hypocritically introduced by Richard as a ‘friend,’ suggesting that she will not benefit from the patriarchal privileges of being ‘owned’ by Richard as a girlfriend or wife. This opens up the space for Jen to be regarded as ‘fair game’ for the other men because she has not been ‘claimed’ by another man. During this awkward encounter Stan quickly realises that Jen is not interested and his ‘gentlemanly’ facade dramatically drops. For any person who has had to listen to and/or deal with a Stan the ensuing conversation between them is excruciating and incendiary – I could feel the embers burning in my fingers. He quickly and cruelly mocks her career ambitions, intelligence (tiny oyster brain) and uses offensive and misogynistic language to assert his dominance over her.
Stan’s anger stems from being regarded as the less dominant man in the group since he is not traditionally masculine enough (“too short, not my type”) to be ‘allowed’ access to Jen’s body. This is not to condemn Jen’s behaviour or words, but to highlight how patriarchal society divides men into harmful categories (dominant male, alpha, beta etc.) that causes resentment and anger. These volatile and dangerous emotions are then directed not towards the unfair and harmful power structures that created them, but towards the women who are equally oppressed by them. The rape represents his attempt to take back an illusory control, to prove his manliness and assert his dominance over woman. Stan believes that their brief dance together the night before equates ‘asking for it’ and he completely ignores her sexual boundaries when she implores him to stop. Stan does not (or wilfully chooses not to) understand the difference between a woman in control of her sexuality and sexual availability, and the concept of consent. In order to further highlight Stan’s lower status within the group Richard, the dominant male, later constantly questions Stan’s masculinity, for example criticising his fondness for heated seats and air-conditioning in the car. Later on Richard also brutally puts Stan in his place for criticising Richard’s behaviour and choices after they discover Dmitri’s body. He will not listen to Stan’s fairly sensible suggestions about the desert and uses physical and symbolic violence to reassert his dominance.
When Dmitri enters the bedroom and witnesses the rape, he also misunderstands the concept of consent and conflates sexual self-awareness with sexual availability. Dmitri also represents the onlooker/audience in society who casually perceives rape/rape culture and turns a blind eye to Jen’s and other rape victim’s sufferings. Dmitri also passively watches the scene whilst consuming sweets as though he is a movie-goer in a cinema casually observing sexual violence on screen with no reaction other than to ignore it and not interrogate its meaning. Dimitri then dives head first into the swimming pool as though he is metaphorically putting his head in the sand. Although as a side note, it is unfortunate the film uses the tired trope of a fat man to literalise moral corruption and gluttony.
When Richard returns and is informed of the rape, his reaction and behaviour position him as the dominant male who represents the patriarchal power structures and institutions that keep rape and sexual violence underreported and hidden. He initially shows temporary and conditional sympathy for Jen by organising hush money and ‘a job’ for her in Canada which will require her to leave LA, ruining her dreams and career ambitions. At the pool party Jen had explained how she wanted to be noticed in LA. Indeed, Jen earlier sports an ‘I Heart LA’ t-shirt and fits the archetype of a young ingenue seeking fame, a potential Hollywood starlet. She even wears ‘star’ earrings, one of which incidentally Stan blasts off in their final confrontation. Given that this film premiered in September 2017, a month before the exposure of the Harvey Weinstein allegations and arguably the tinderbox spark for the MeToo Movement, the conversation feels depressingly real and timely.
However, when Jen rejects Richard’s ‘plan’ and insists on receiving actual justice for Stan’s crime, he pulls out all the classic misogynist tricks in the book to deny her experience – firstly gaslighting, then accusations of hysteria, infantilising and finally victim-blaming. In her desperation Jen threatens to inform Richard’s wife and, like Stan, his ‘nice’ facade instantly drops and he resorts to misogynistic name-calling and violence, which ultimately culminates in her brutal attempted murder. In other words, once Richard’s dominant position and power is threatened (especially by a woman), the threat must be subjugated and then obliterated. Later disturbed by Jen’s apparent murder, Stan questions Richard’s plan to cover it up and suggests that they should get lawyers instead. He notes that ‘(the lawyers)’ll think of something, they always do.’ This comment also reminds us that it was likely that even if Jen had returned home to seek justice it would not have been served due to the biases against rape victims in the courts and judicial system.
In terms of power relations Richard is just as (if not more) nefarious as Stan. He is the representation of the dominant patriarchal power structure and also a psychopathic murderer. He has no scruples about destroying Jen figuratively and literally. She is now an inconvenience and completely disposable, so pushes her off the edge of a cliff to her expected death. Jen is penetrated by a phallic tree branch at the bottom of the cliff suggesting that patriarchal society is literally killing her. Later Richard even ‘forgets’ about Jen and continues to project the image of a caring husband and father, demonstrating how patriarchal society has created a split personality for some men in order to bear the weight of its own contradictions and hypocrisies. However, once they realise that Jen has not been killed and has in fact escaped, the three types of men set off in three different types of vehicles across the desert to hunt their new prey, following Jen’s blood trail (looking like a quasi-Lynchian road) stalking her as though she were a wounded animal.
A Monstrous Femme?
As previously mentioned, Jen’s fall is broken by a stake-like tree branch and she survives. Thus begins the fight of her life. And oh boy does she fight. Like a modern-day Bertha Mason, Jen manages to ignite a cleansing fire, free herself from the stake and escape her imposed grave. Akin to a slasher movie’s female victim, Jen is impaled on a sharp object and experiences a literal castration as her body becomes an open, bleeding wound. However, unlike this archetypal victim, Jen returns from the presumed dead to take on the role of the ‘monstrous’ female castrator (aka the deadly femme castratrice). In the Monstrous Feminine, Barbara Creed notes that unlike the transgressing castrated female monster “the castrating woman – usually a sympathetic figure – is rarely punished. She assumes two forms: the castrating female psychotic and the woman who seeks revenge on men who have raped or abused her in some way.” In Jen’s effort to enact vengeance against those who have harmed her, she is clearly coded as the former.
In ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’ Carol J. Clover notes that in slasher films the deaths of the male victims are swift and often unseen in comparison to the female victims. However, rape revenge films usually reverse this trope and Revenge is certainly no exception. Jen finds safety within the amniotic waters of the desert river and it is to be the site of Dmitri’s death, the first revenge killing. His punishment is literally an eye for an eye, for being witness to, and ignoring, Stan’s crime. Jen enacts Freudian retribution by figuratively castrating him with a knife to the eyes and in doing so we now understand that it is Jen who can hold the phallus/power. Like Dmitri’s description of his own hunting technique, the tables have turned and the hunter has become the hunted. His death through blindness is also foreshadowed in the earlier pool party scene where Dimitri observes Jen through his phallic binoculars. He specifically focuses on her mouth and teeth signalling her vagina dentata and her potential castrating power. Similarly, Richard notes that one would be “blind not to notice (Jen)” which further predicts Dimitri’s voyeurism, wilful blindness and death.
After the first killing which signals Jen’s previously unknown powers, her complete rebirth occurs under a full moon inside a womb-like cave, connecting Jen again with nature and classic symbols of feminine power. Jen takes the peyote, removes the stake from her body and cauterises the wound with a beer can which leaves an imprint of a Mexican eagle/phoenix upon her torso. Thus, nature is literally branded into Jen’s flesh. Jen is further connected with this national/mythical bird through her subsequent hallucinogenic dream – a bird that has a powerful, phallic beak and talons. Jen joins a long line of castrating women associated with avian imagery – Psycho’s Mrs Bates being one of the most famous. Additionally, on Mexico’s coat of arms the eagle represents good triumphing over evil (with the snake as the personification of the latter) which makes sense given we view Jen as the hero. However, given that this film features a load of white people fighting it out in a desert which is presumably not their native land, I think it is worth noting that there is a problematic dimension to suggesting that Jen’s strength comes from a symbol which represents non-white peoples. It recalls the trope of white Western women appropriating and utilising oppressed groups and people’s symbols/resources to benefit and rejuvenate themselves.
When Jen emerges from the cave, Fargeat symbolically recreates Jen’s introductory swirling, body-focused shot in an act of cinematic subversion. Instead of casually objectifying Jen’s body, now the film’s gaze acknowledges and celebrates her emotional, sexual and physical power. Her body may still be desirable, but now we see it through an alternative, feminine gaze. It suggests that Jen’s body has transformed from a site of objectification and trauma into a site of agency and strength.
Jen leaves the archaic mother’s cave reborn and barefoot like the goddess Tiamat covered in blood and dirt, but wrapped in the trappings of masculine technology for protection. Jen has used the men’s own tools to rebuild herself along with the peyote to create psychological as well as physical armour. She confidently wields these phallic weapons and ammunition. Her feminine heart (necklace) may be still on the outside, but now her body is powerful and dangerous. As previously mentioned, equating women so directly to feminine symbols like nature/the maternal is problematic as it suggests an unhelpful essentialist view of womanhood. However, the nature of Jen’s return – utilising masculine technology and displaying helpful masculine traits – demonstrates that Jen is an embodiment of a righteous synthesis of nature and civilisation. It suggests that those who accept and successfully fuse both the feminine and masculine within themselves will be the ultimate victor.
Jen also bears the classical marks of the patriarchal construct of the abject female ‘monster’ (as defined by Barbara Creed) – firstly, her body oozes blood, sweat and pus (at one point she is even assumed to be the ultimate abject object – a corpse). Secondly, Jen is identified with the maternal through her explicit connection to ‘mother’ nature. The fact that Jen does not speak post-fall also reminds us of Kristeva’s conception of the abject, a maternal pre-symbolic realm where there is no language. Thirdly, if the abject monster is what ‘crosses or threatens to cross the border,’ Jen is abject for crossing and collapsing the boundary between normal and abnormal gender behaviour which highlights the unstable and ambiguous nature of gender identity. Creed notes that the female castrator is a woman who refuses to adopt the proper feminine role and Jen is certainly no exception. Her quest for vengeance and the nature of how she exacts her revenge suggests that she is meant to be seen as an abject ‘monster.’ Stan’s end begins with a feminizing foot injury. A shard of glass created by Jen leads to a deep, vagina-like wound on his sole. In a gory parody of childbirth, Stan removes the glass from his foot with a primal scream. His injury suggests that he is now in a similar position to women within a patriarchal society, he has been hobbled and he is vulnerable. Even his oversized, armoured vehicle cannot save him from a bullet in the head.
In the final conflict, Jen attempts to equalize her power position with Richard by blowing a vaginal hole in his torso mirroring her own wound. Richard fights Jen completely naked with a similar gun and wound suggesting that they are now at parity. In a canny reversal Jen begins to stalk Richard inside the house through his blood trail. We also see Jen’s belt comically mimicking a dangling penis suggesting that now she holds the phallus/power to defeat Richard’s dominant position. Jen and Richard dizzyingly circle each other around the house again and again as the television blares out an American advert for some amorphous product which appears to require one to just keep on consuming. It suggests that under the conditions of a neoliberal capitalist, patriarchal society men and women literally keep on ‘going around in circles’ until it causes our destruction.
Jen then literally and figuratively slips up leading to Richard’s premature victory speech in which he tells Jen that she cannot win and her only option was to leave without putting up a fight but “women always have to put up a fucking fight.” Of course, Richard speaks too soon. Jen triumphs over Richard at the point all seems lost by digitally penetrating his vaginal-like wound and then blowing him away. Jen prevails through using Richard’s weapons and the symbolic wound against him. Unlike many rape revenge films like I Spit on Your Grave, Jen’s revenge is not eroticised or connected with the sex/death trope commonly associated with the deadly femme castratrice.
So if the nature of Jen’s revenge ultimately makes her an abject ‘monster’ I want to take leaf out of Sady Doyle’s (literal and metaphorical) book ‘Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers’ and suggest that we embrace this particular monstrosity. Jen’s return is like the revenge of the goddess Tiamat, Lilith, the archaic mother coming to exact justice over the patriarchal society that has tried to extinguish her flames and deny her presence. She is the return of the repressed feminine within society. The film’s penultimate shot shows Jen as though she is walking across water suggesting that she represents some kind of societal redeemer. Jen’s rebirth and revenge shifts the depiction of the deadly femme castratrice in that she is still ‘monstrous,’ but this is a monstrosity that we sympathise with and understand. The question is – are we ready for her? In the final shot Jen stares directly into the camera as the sound of the helicopter’s blades buzz overhead seemingly ready to take her back to the ‘real’ world. Her confident and assured gaze is a provocation to the audience. It asks us to face and confront the reality of sexual violence and its consequences within our patriarchal society. Jen’s fate is unknown – can we envision a different future?
I am not claiming that Revenge is a realistic portrayal of a woman coming to terms with her trauma, however I am saying that it is a deeply satisfying and thought-provoking movie that very much does what it says on the tin. The catharsis is very real. I enjoyed it a lot.
So what did you think of this film? Do you agree with my analysis or take a different view? Let me know in the comments below.
Let's Scare Lauren to Death 