Review of Day of the Woman (1978) by Tony H — 18 Jun 2008

It's difficult to compliment or be positive in any way about Meir Zarchi's controversial film, because even though it does come down on the side of the female victim, her ordeal is so distressing and brutal that one feels unclean for choosing to sit down and be a willing observer to it.

Most people will be aware that this film is a rape/revenge scenario and probably will be aware that it has courted much outrage since it first shocked audiences in the late 70's, but few people will be privy to the fact that the abuse of Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) goes on for at least the first third of the movie and as such it is an extremely uneasy amount of time for a viewer to sit through. So much so, that when she enacts her revenge, it seems almost standard...a given. In fact it would be difficult to imagine the film if the producers had abandoned to revenge conclusion, as it acts as such a release of the pressure built up by the horrific preceding events.

"I Spit on Your Grave" is a title that gained much of it's notoriety from the hysterical "Video Nasties" bill that was circulated in Britain in the early 1980's. It appeared alongside movies such as "Cannibal Holocaust", "Zombie Flesh Eaters" and "The Beast in Heat". But while the majority of the Video Nasties were mere exploitation schlock (that in most cases seem remarkably harmless now), Zarchi's effort has retained it's extremely disturbing atmosphere because unlike the undead of "Zombie Flesh Eaters", the funny looking Nazi creation in "The Beast in Heat" and to some degree the outrageous cannibal tribes in the first film, rape and rapists are very real. However, I must say that the rapists in "I Spit on Your Grave" are so one-dimensional bad guys that it's hard to reconcile them to the real world. That aside, the movie is a story about an event that affects many women (although probably not to the vile extent that Keaton's character goes through).

The basic plot is very simple, there is no subtly here. In short form, a young female journalist is abducted while she is on vacation and is subjected to a series of appalling assaults on her person. Afterward, she manages to get herself together and embarks on a brutal revenge against her attackers. The movie is an extremely violent, dirty and utterly depressing experience...and this is actually the project's strong point. I watched this alone one evening and I came away from it feeling awful, feeling dirty and even ashamed. In fact, I could barely bring myself to tell my girlfriend what movie I watched when I was asked.

No movie before or after has ever had that effect on me.

In some ways, I believe I felt some of the feelings that a rape victim feels after such a disgusting event; dirty, depressed, angry, ashamed and utterly disillusioned with human beings...albeit to a relatively minuscule level admittedly. [i]I[/i] could walk away from the DVD, but the experience stayed with me for days afterward. This end-of viewing feeling was certainly the overwhelming result from the 100 minute running time.

Although, I personally don't consider "I Spit on Your Grave" to be an exploitation film, at least not in the same manner as "Ilse: She wolf of the SS", or the myriad of Cannibal / Zombie flicks, it still suffers from the same weaknesses usually endured by low budget exploitation movies...bad acting, bad dialogue and poor advances in scripting and they take from the film, somewhat inevitably.

There also have been some who have attempted to portray "I Spit on Your Grave" as a 'pro-rape' fantasy, but I find that very hard to accept. Zarchi presents the attackers as incredibly cruel and without a shred of decency that it's impossible to imagine any viewer siding with their point of view. As difficult as "I Spit on Your Grave" is to look at, the overall impulse is to identify with the innocent victim. Zarchi, who prefers the more positive title of "Day of the Woman" to the sensationalist "I Spit on Your Grave", has always maintained that he had tried to manifest a 'pro-feminist' angle with his film and is shocked that some people would think that he (or anyone) would attempt to make a pro-rape movie. This PR spin seems a little naive in the world of pedophile rings and violent internet porn, but such things were unknown when Zarchi set out to make his opus. The director, in fact, claims that he set out to make the film after helping a victim of rape in New York.

In conclusion, if you believe you have the stomach for it (and I don't mean that in a macho way) "I Spit on Your Grave" offers the viewer an experience that no other film will give, if you chose to go down that road. But for most audiences, I feel that this experience will simply prove to be too much.