★★★★½

We all know the general line that gets tossed around far too easily when it comes to sexual assault: The way she was acting, the way she was dressed - she was asking for it. Revenge takes that stigma and kicks it in the face, shoots it in the shoulder, and stabs it in the eyes. French director Coralie Fargeat's film works so well largely because its events aren't meant to be completely taken literally. Our protagonist performs nothing short of a miracle in order to get retribution - a second chance that many women never get to have. But Revenge grants that second chance, and proves what a woman scorned is truly capable of. 

The film follows Jen (Matilda Lutz), a young woman who goes on a romantic getaway to a secluded home in the desert with her secret boyfriend, Richard (Kevin Janssens), a wealthy, married man. The pair wind up interrupted by Richard's friends, Stanley (Vincent Colombe) and Dimitri (Guillaume Bouchède), who arrive a day early for their hunting expedition. Things begin seemingly friendly and harmless, but quickly take a turn for the worst, and Jen is willing to fight at all costs to get her revenge. 

Visually speaking, the film was a glittery, gory spectacle, and is a perfect example of a low-budget production done right. It definitely did not hold back on the severity of its graphicness, and its imagery helped evoke the film's metaphor to its fullest, whether it be a phoenix rising on a beer can or an ant stumbling through sand and blood. There was one particularly crucial scene where a male character is completely naked aside from the gun he holds, and is practically an emblem for prototypical masculinity. Without the gun, he becomes placed in a position of weakness and vulnerability, making for a nice gender-role reversal that doesn't happen quite too often when it comes to nudity. 

It also had a killer score by Robin Coudert, and was very reminiscent of the way music and sound is often played with in new French extremity films to amplify moments of intensity. It was also spectacularly shot, and the cast, while small in numbers, gave dedicated performances that made the events onscreen feel all too real. 

Revenge has been described by many as a rape-revenge exploitation film with a feminist twist. But isn't that how it always should be? Particularly when the victim is a woman? It ultimately emphasizes the importance and necessity of female directors, especially when it comes to films with such subject matter. What come across as misguided male gaze in the hands of one becomes a gratifying and cathartic reclaiming of the female body, as was the case with Fargeat. Despite being uttered from a point of offence, perhaps one of the lines from the film says it best: "Women always have to put up a fucking fight."