Review of Revenge (2017) by Bryan B — 20 May 2018

Coralie Faregeat's cinematic writing & directorial debut "revenge" is kind of like a hyper-condensed version of Kill bill (both plot-wise as well as sytlistically as this is the most garishly hued, spectacle-scene-laden material since quinton tarantino put uma thurman in her iconic yellow and black biker jump suit before slaughtering nearly 100 yakuzas in single combat...but I do not digress, because our americana billboard of a protagonist, Jen, spends the entire film adapting to the situation no matter what regardless of how painfully bleak things get - and they are certainly bleak and only get more grim as she hobbles in tatters to try and survive the ridiculously twisted yet believable situation she is thrust into with no warning - and the moment you think you know what is about to happen next, or how things will end, Faregeat never misses a beat to to give you some visual smelling salts that suddenly have you too frenzied and invested in the goings-on to start wondering or predicting who will make it or if any one will.

If last year's best french horror film, raw, which was considered by myself to easily be one of the best overall genre films last year not just from france or an independent backing, was the "veggie/vegan" film that was as bloody & ruthless with its visuals as it was intelligent with its substance (and style) approach, than revenge is 2018's answer to the brazenly ambitious american dream we all know is a bad joke but it also manages to also throw shade at other countries and cultures who would just as easily look at said audacity and mock said american dream.

What can I say, i'm a sucker for a storyteller who wallows in absurdism like the world will end if they don't layer it thick, and this is one nasty film with a bite, a few kidney shots, a self-cauterized stabwould with some campfire-heated beercan-alum that is everything hacks such as lars von trier are too self-involved to make, not matter how often he tries only to get 80% home free and then shamelessly reminds us that only a first year film student would think lars von triers work is anything worth watching. But this? this is some potent peyote-wielding kickass while literally and metaphorically decomposing highlighted with vibrant warm shades of indigo, violet, teal, and pink layered throughout the screen as if to counterbalance the brutal and sickly feral violence that befalls the one female in the film.

If you haven't watched it by now, or even if you have, just do yourself a favor and stop whatever banal task you're doing and give this a go. hell, watch it with a loved one, the perfect date movie in an odd kind of way. Cheers.